


Vector to the Stars

by olddarkmachine



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Altean Shiro, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Blood, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Eventual Smut, Fluff, Intergalactic War, Keith is the one made a gladiator by the Galra, M/M, No age difference, Post-Kerberos Mission, Pre-Kerberos Mission, Role Reversal, Violence, above all else this is about love, love that stretches across time and space, this is definitely inspired by the iliad, world building
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-30
Updated: 2018-10-30
Packaged: 2019-01-26 13:59:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 9
Words: 45,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12558924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/olddarkmachine/pseuds/olddarkmachine
Summary: Shiro’s life had ended, up amongst the stars that he had dedicated it to. It had been dashed across the surface of a moon that could offer them nothing more than rocks and ice. Keith had seen the evidence for himself, etched on the crust like a memorial.Shiro was dead.So why was he sitting beside the Galran emperor?





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This is very much a passion project. I originally hadn't wanted to share it until I had most-- if not all-- of it completed, but I've never been very good about sitting on things. 
> 
> It's gonna be a long'n-- planned currently to be 100k-120k words-- and I'm gonna be in it for the long haul, so I hope you enjoy the ride with me as much as I've already enjoyed all the planning and writing!

**Prologue.**

 

It’s funny how time and space seem to stand still in the face of death. Such unyielding forces, older than existence itself found themselves halted when set against its eternal darkness whereas mere humans rushed towards it with reckless abandon. It is the human condition to hurtle towards the abyss that long stood as a foreign concept to them. Yet, through the 200,000 years they’d existed on Earth, not a single one of them found out the answer. What was the definition of death? When did a life end and death begin?

Medical science said the end of brain function was when that organ died. It said once breathing had stopped and the heart had ceased beating, a body would be certified as deceased.

The French say we are faced with several little deaths throughout a lifetime.  _La petite mort._  Or rather,  the brief loss of consciousness, or the brief spiritual transcendence after an orgasm.

Legally, death was when there was a certificate from a doctor proclaiming the nature of one’s demise with the date and time.

To philosophers, death was an empty concept that was meant for use by the living. There was no evidence for whether it truly existed or not, and only those that had fallen prey to it would know for certain.

Keith had read all the theories and definitions of death. He had devoured them with the ferocity of a starving animal that didn’t know where it would find its next meal. Surrounded by all the words that made up the philosophies and myths of death, he had attempted to pick it apart until he had a better understanding of it, for if he understood the mind of the beast, he could best it.

If he knew what made death work, then he could delve into its frigid, inky depths to bring the other half of his soul back. Maybe he even could be Orpheus, walking through the Underworld to bring Eurydice home. Only he wouldn’t look back just to let everything slip through his fingers all over again.

All he had read led him to believe that death would be heavy and dark with icy fingers that would attempt to drown him within its frigid depths. The first time he’d prepared for it, he would have placed everything on that bet. At one point, he’d even thought he’d welcome it if only to finally get some peace.

Yes, he thought he understood death. But as he experienced the phenomena that tore him apart, he realized he hadn’t known anything about it at all.

Warm light thrummed around him, blinding him as he felt the strong hold of time wrap around his shoulders. The silence was deafening as it stood still, stopped in its wake by the sudden appearance of death.

In that single instant, the particles that made up his very being were being ripped apart in soundless exaltation as they returned to the starlight they’d been born from.

Keith had thought that once he’d wanted death, but what he hadn’t realized was that he yearned for was to truly live. What he sought had not been an ending, but a beginning of a new life.

One that would reunite him with the only person he still so desperately wanted to see.

Fate and time had given him his chance at that life, but he should have known that it would come with a price. As he closed his eyes to the white light he felt the small pieces of himself as they started to rip and tear, floating away into the unending expanse of space as he let his mind find solace in a storm colored gaze.

_Was it worth it?_

The question was a whisper that rolled through the illuminated air like thunder.

 _Was_ he _worth it?_

Silence stretched across the frozen time as Keith became memory, his being slipping away and leaving nothing more than a recollection of moments lived.

 _Yes,_  his disembodied voice finally answered back into the light.  _He will always be worth it._

It was quiet as the unseen entity contemplated his answer, its gentle pressure rolling out into the brightness before it was slowly replaced by a new presence.

One that he had known so deeply in life, that nothing would have stopped him from knowing it in death. His very being called out to the presence, yearning for its other half as he searched through the light until he saw the silhouette in the distance. At the edge of the bright light, the figure stood, arm outstretched and welcoming in the luminescence.

Even with the shadow obscuring his face, Keith knew him.

 _He would know him anywhere_.

In that moment, he welcomed death. Truly accepted the finality of it and all its uncharted knowledge that he’d never found within any text. Reaching out, his fingers intertwined with that of the figure before him as he smiled.

Keith’s death was for love.

_It had all been for love._


	2. I.

** I. **

 

Everything was hot. Of course, that was a given in a desert. That didn’t make the dry heat radiating from both above and below any less stifling. The only relief Keith Kogane got was from the roof that stood between him and the blazing sun that would bake his already tanned skin until it matched the reddened earth that surrounded his home. 

Said home-- which was more of a hut-- was minimalistic in its existence. One room attached to a barely there kitchen and an even smaller bathroom made up of scarred wood, it was the kind of setting better suited for storing illegal substances and kidnapping victims. It wasn’t the kind of place for living, and yet it was home all the same.

_Their_ home.

One that had grown on him in the same way his love had, slowly and earnestly with all the charms that could only come from something as ill looking as the dilapidated shack. A husk of bitter laughter eased itself past his lips as he remembered the first time he’d even laid his crushed velvet stare on its crooked form.

_“You’re joking, right?” His voice had been as flat as the desert under his feet as his lips had turned down in a displeased frown. The look earned him a hearty chuckle as a heavy arm had landed on his shoulders. Against his own will, he had felt his frown start to give way to a smile as his heart leapt at the contact._

_“I know it doesn’t look like much, but it’s ours.”_

It had been hard to argue with that that logic, and though he had missed air conditioning, the shack had become as much a safe haven for him as the arms that were always waiting for him there when he’d come home. 

A lazy drop of sweat rolled down the nape of his neck, taking the memory with it as it disappeared beneath the black fabric of the muscle tee that hung loosely from his small frame. 

_His_ muscle tee. 

When he’d pulled it on that morning, the scent of mint and almond that still clung to it had caused his eyes to tear.

Now it just smelled faintly of sandalwood mixed with the sharp tang of his own sweat. Breathing in heavily, his lungs fought against the oppressive heat rolling through the room.

_It was just so god damn hot._

Ignoring the moisture that was wetting the hair curling messily at his collar, he looked over the sparse furnishing that stood alone in the hut.

In the far corner, a black metal frame stood proudly, a thin queen size mattress sitting atop it like a withered cloud. After he had rolled out of it this morning, he had tucked its light grey bedding around it and fluffed the pillows so that it stood waiting for an occupant that would never come. As he appraised it, Keith couldn’t help but think that for just a moment it looked almost as welcoming as it once had an entire lifetime ago.

_“It’s like you said. I’ll be back in no time, and you won’t even have time to miss me.” Soft lips brushed across his, hesitating over the bow before he pushed away._

Quickly shaking his head free of the phantom touch that he could still feel ghosting over his skin, Keith let his eyes roam from the bed and to the matte brown leather trunk that lay beside it. It was the only other piece of furniture in the corner that they’d dubbed as the bedroom and yet it held the entirety of what was left of his life within its space. Stuffed full of the handful of outfits he recycled through, and the clothes that still waited obediently for their owner to return, it was a a symbol of just how sparse his life was.

Keith had never had much. He’d never been allowed to stay in one spot long enough to have much. Abandoned by a mother that had walked out just days after his birth, and eventually left by a father that couldn’t stand to see him growing to look more like her each day, he’d started life with nothing. After, he would only ever know foster homes with strangers who would tire of him once they decided the check from the government wasn’t worth putting up with his delinquency. In the beginning, the sorrow of not being good enough would eat away at him, leaving him a sniveling thing with doe eyes and a tragic story that new fosters always gravitated towards. It was akin to people that bought puppies only to abandon them a few months later. When the puppy stopped being cute, it was out to the street or kicked to the pound.  
****

At some point Keith stopped being sad about it and just became angry. Angry at the mother and father that left; angry at the fosters that all eventually looked at him with disdain; angry at the world that had deemed him unworthy of a childhood filled with love; angry at fate for resting such a heavy burden on top of his too small shoulders. That animosity drove him, and instead of trying to fit in, he decided to throw his efforts into biding his time until he was old enough to get out of the system, or he got himself into another system.

His out came in the form of the shiny, chrome Garrison.

The invitation had come to him through the bars of a jail cell where he’d spent the night after being caught with a stolen hovercraft. Again. When his foster family had been called the first time, they’d come running, the lies of “He’ll never do it again, officer,” and “He’s a great kid, promise,” falling from their lips like stones. The second time, it took his foster father an hour to get there, his eyes filled with a humiliated ember that turned into a rage filled fire once they’d returned home. He had to wear jackets in the dead of summer for weeks to hide the bruising from that one, but nothing could mask the cries that haunted him at night as his foster mother had asked why he insisted on acting out. _Do you like the punishment?_

The third time, they didn’t even answer the sheriff’s call.

A sharp voice had made him jump out of the middle ground between sleep and wakefulness that he had been caught between the entire night, and he’d fallen off the cot that he’d claimed as his own in the community holding cell. Standing just on the other side of the bars, with his look of disappointment and pity-- a mix he’d learned adults saved especially for him, and learned to hate-- the sheriff held an envelope embossed with the Garrison insignia. It was in that cell, surrounded by drunkards that had been pulled off the roads in the middle of the night and the occasional homeless man, that Keith’s life changed.

For the better, and for the worst.

Before, when he’d been bouncing around from home to home and town to town, he had never had much, and he had never wanted much. It was easy to not crave or miss something you never had, and Keith had never known what it was like to be without. Then the Garrison gave him a purpose. They gave him a reason. They gave him everything he could have ever wanted in the form of broad shoulders, warm liquid steel eyes, and a smile that was touched by starlight.

That everything was named Takashi Shirogane. Shirogane to their commanding officers. Shiro to their classmates and his friends. Takashi only to Keith in the dark when his fingers were curled in sheets and his breath was ragged.

With a sigh, Keith tore his gaze from the chestnut hide that had begun to blur and swim amongst the pool of moisture that had started to sting his eyes. Crushing his eyes shut against the the sunlit room, he breathed in for five and out for five, only opening them again once the stone in his throat shrunk and shriveled away.

There wasn’t much else to look at in the hut. The kitchen was threadbare with a small, stained sink, a two burner stovetop and an ancient refrigerator that had somehow survived the 50s, yet it was where he found himself drawn to next. One foot stepped in front of the other, dragging him towards the off putting green Big Chill that sucked up what little space was allotted for the kitchen area. If he opened the doors, he knew he would see nothing but a half empty container of Chinese takeout from the place just in town, and a half empty bottle of whiskey. The former would be an unwelcome surprise for whoever happened upon the hut after he left, but the latter he was sure they could enjoy.

Standing in front of the vintage appliance, his eyes found their true target as they landed on the single photo that clung to the fridge’s exterior by a single, industrial magnet. A version of himself he’d forgotten stood looking at the camera with a garish orange jacket on his small frame and an even more outlandish smile carved upon his face. His eyes were pinched at the corners as his elation reached them. Standing beside him with an arm draped over Keith’s shoulders, was Shiro. He was taller than Keith, and broader. Always had been, and at one point and time he had hated him for it. Hated the way the same orange jacket that had made Keith look like a pumpkin had clung to Shiro’s body as if it were from a runway and had been made for him and hated the way he had the face of a hero. As he inspected the way the larger of them was ignoring the camera, opting instead to turning his beaming grin down towards Keith, he wondered how he could have ever hated him at any point.

_Sad news today as we receive reports that the Kerberos mission has failed._

Lifting a finger to trace the image, he ignored the way it trembled as he pressed the pad of his index finger just over the bright smile that had been taken from him too soon. Yes, the Garrison had given him everything he could ever ask for.

And it also took it away.

The Kerberos mission had been sold to the him and the rest of the officers at the Garrison as a simple exploration mission. A team of three, one pilot and two scientists, would be sent to Pluto’s smallest moon to collect samples from its surface. At most, it would take a year, they had said, and what was one year when you could take a part in the first mission to go that far from Earth. All officers were welcome to apply for the mission, and apply they did. Keith had been one of them, settling into a friendly competition with Shiro who had always danced just out of his grasp when it came to all things pertaining to the Garrison. Once upon a time, it would have bothered him. He used to stay up at night, angrily cursing the other cadet that was always besting him and imagining what it would feel like to wipe the smug look he just had to have off his face.

When they’d announced the officers that had won the slots and were headed into space and Shiro was named the pilot, he had already claimed Keith’s heart along with his seat at the controls.

 _The Garrison is reporting a pilot error to be behind the crash that claimed the lives of the three crew members._  
****

It was five months into the mission when the news came. Keith still felt the way the eyes of the cadets at the base had bored into him as he walked through the halls, unaware of the news that was pasted across every television screen in the Garrison. He had made it to the training session he was meant to teach before he’d learned what had happened. A TV that had sat in the corner of the training room was flashing Shiro’s face across it when he’d walked in. One of the worst things about the discovery was the audience that witnessed him wracked with uncontrollable sobbing as his chest was split in two for them all to see.

Growling lowly, Keith snatched the photo from the fridge, paying little mind as the magnet was torn with it, the small circle of iron clattering across the kitchen floor with a jarring clangor before it finally stopped underneath the cupboards.  
****

All he had originally planned to take with him was his jacket, his lock picking kit, and his senses. The rest he had decided to leave for whatever soul found their way to his and Shiro’s small slice of solitude, but staring at the one piece of photographic evidence that he had once been happy, he decided one more addition couldn’t hurt. Carefully pressing the card stock to his lips, his folded it and gently tucked it into the back pocket of his jeans. His fingers closed around the red leather of his riding jacket that sat on the counter before he threw it on over his shoulders, ignoring the way the sweat that had started to slide down his arms stuck to the material.

As he crossed the small space that separated the kitchen from the front door, Keith grabbed the ring with two keys from the nail that stood at attention from the old wood of the wall and let his eyes wander one last time over the hut. If he allowed himself to linger too long, he would probably talk himself out of it. Even now, with the determination igniting his blood, he could still feel the low pull in his gut of an unexplained feeling he couldn’t quite place. Fear, perhaps. The kind of fear that came with stepping out into the unknown and knowing you weren’t coming back.  
****

It was the kind of feeling that caused bile to rise in your throat and settle there, waiting for you to vomit it up or to choke on it. Swallowing painfully around the burning sensation, Keith nodded at the vacant space as if saying goodbye to an old friend, and turned to leave. Without bothering to lock the door he walked away from his home, for the first time in his life, leaving by choice and not by force.

There was no time to think about the plan that he was about to set into motion as he climbed onto the cherry red motorcycle that sat outside the hut. Its black leather seat burned dully through his jeans as he settled on it, patting his hand gently on the speedometer before he thrust one of the keys into the ignition. The motorcycle roared to life, splitting the silence of the desert around himinto two. His legs tightened around the metal frame as he fiddled with the clutch, enjoying the thrill of the motorcycle growling angrily with each tease of the grip. They’d always said he was an excellent pilot at the Garrison, but that had nothing on what he could do with a bike. A faint smile tugged upwards at the corners of his mouth as he let the brake go, letting the motorcycle devour the dirt she’d been so rearing to go at.

“Take me to him,” Keith said over the air that whipped over his eardrums and through his hair.

Ever since the announcement of the Kerberos mission failing, Keith had demanded to see proof that the team had died. When none of the senior officers could provide it to him, he started his own investigations. In the beginning they’d humored him, allowing him to use the radios to search for any distress signals from the far quadrant that lay out near Pluto and its moons. They’d even allowed him to use their telescopes, hoping that maybe if he saw the marks across Kerberos’ surface he would finally accept the result. He’d grown accustomed to the saddened eyes that watched him as he walked through the halls and entered the radio and telescope rooms, and had even stopped paying attention to the way most people would leave as soon as he arrived.

It was a couple of months of this before the looks of sorrow turned to that of exasperation. Though no one ever said anything, he could feel the tension rolling off the other officers, and yet he persisted. If no one was going to continue looking for them, he would. They had all been a bunch of cowards that had given up on their own but he wouldn’t give up.

He couldn’t give up.

_That’s enough, Kogane. He’s gone and you need to accept that._

Keith growled at the thick drawl of Iverson telling him to accept Shiro’s death, as if it was so easy. How was it possible to just accept the loss of a piece of his soul? Shiro may have merely been an expendable soldier to them, one that they could recreate if they pushed their students hardenough in their simulators. The proof had been in the simulation scores that he’d witnessed growing higher and higher, inching closer as they raced towards the unattainable score Shiro had held.

He had been one of them, always chasing an expectation he could never meet. The only difference was, he ended up capturing something so much more than the number one slot atop the leaderboard. Keith would be immortalized as second place until the end of time, or until the new students dragged him down with their overachieving scores. Maybe once that would have pissed him off, but now? None of it mattered now that Shiro was gone.

The wind continued to scream around him as he tore through the desert, cloud of red dust raising behind him in angry dirt devils as he stared at the distant gleam of the Garrison in the distance. As the sun was setting, it glinted off the chrome building with blinding flashes of refracted sunlight. Once, he would have found it beautiful. His amethyst glare stayed trained on his target as he pushed the motorcycle faster towards his escape.

 _You’re done here. We’ll give you an honorable discharge, it’s the least we can do after all you’ve done for the Garrison._  
****

None of the other cadets or officers said anything to Keith for all the things he did during the months he searched for Shiro, at least, until he’d stolen an airship. No more than an hour had passed before he found his vessel surrounded by several of the highest commanders in their own jets, demanding he return to the base or be shot down. For a moment, he’d considered letting them shoot him from the sky. Maybe then he could finally find some peace.

Maybe then he could find Shiro.

Radio silence had filled the cabin and the airwaves as he had weighed his options. Time had frozen for him as they all waited with bated breath and fingers on the triggers. It was with a sigh that he resigned and made his way back to the Garrison, knowing he would be lucky to get out without any jail time.

Handcuffs and drawn guns had welcomed him once he’d landed, and he’d barely had time to get out of the aircraft before he was pulled down to the ground with a knee in his back and the cuffs biting into his skin. Iverson had been there to call off the MPs, telling them he wasn’t pressing charges but making it abundantly clear that Keith was finished with the Garrison.

Just like the many families that came before them, they dumped him back onto the streets alone with nothing. It was so tragic, Keith almost found it funny.

What they didn’t know when they’d kicked him out with his honorable discharge and his pension check, was that they were handing him the opportunity to do it again. Almost as soon as his scuffed boots had hit the dirt outside of the base, he’d begun to piece together his plan.

He would break into the Garrison’s hangar and take an airship. Then he would get his answers. There, he would be able to find his peace.

The metal and glass walls of the base loomed over him now, casting its shadow over him as the sun dipped down below the metallic roof. Keith let up on the clutch, allowing the motorcycle to quiet as he looked up at the sky that was painted with the colors of fire. Purple and pink slashed through the oranges and reds that had bled into one another across the open sky. With the wind caressing his face and the near silence with the absence of the engine’s roar, Keith felt a calm settle over his weary body as he dedicated each line of color above him to memory.

It would be his last sunset, and what a sight it was.

That calm carried him over the last stretch of desert towards the fence that surrounded the base, a sign of **No Trespassers, Military Property** staring angrily at him with its crimson letters. As he let the bike coast to a stop, setting the brake and pulling the keys from the ignition, he couldn’t help but think that he wasn’t really a trespasser. Wasn’t he also once military property? Swinging a leg over the leather seat, he dropped the keys on top of where he once sat before pressing a hand to the seat beside them.

“You be good now,” Keith whispered to the motorcycle, voice thick with the goodbyes he was really saying to the Earth he’d fought so hard to be a part of and that had rejected him anyway. After the momentary pause, he regained his composure and made quick work of the fence. Pulling himself up swiftly over the links, he threw himself over the top and landed soundlessly on the balls of his feet on the black top that marked where the Garrison started and the desert ended. A gust of wind blew red dust over the heated concrete, only amplifying the lack of inhabitants occupying the ground.

Keith knew the schedule for the guards by heart after having been at the base for ten years of his life, and knew that there was a brief 30 minute period of time where the hangars were left unattended as the guards switching out all went to get dinner. They’d never had to worry about a rogue officer before and he silently thanked their complacency for aiding him this once. His boots thudded flatly against the burning concrete as he made his way to the hangar with the space jets that were reserved specifically for long journeys and the senior officers going on them. Adrenaline made his hands shake as his blood rushed in his ears as he finally made his way to the door that stood between him and his task at hand. With a quick flick of his wrist, Keith pulled a small leather pouch from his jacket pocket and pulled out two metal instruments that looked almost like they belonged in a dental office. As he tinkered with the lock, twisting the tools back and forth, he sucked his bottom lip into his mouth and chewed at the flaking dry skin.

“C’mon.” A shade of desperation and annoyance colored his voice as he rattled the lock with the lockpick. The hands of time did not stand still as he jostled the lock unsuccessfully, and the cold fingers of dread started to creep up around his neck as the shadow of the sun sinking lower behind the horizon stole away his light. Finally a barely there click made his heart leap as the lock gave way and the door fell open.

Pushing his way in, he closed and locked the door behind him, leaving it exactly as he had found it though it wouldn’t make a difference shortly. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness of the hangar, they fell upon the ship he’d so desperately been waiting to get to in the middle of the floor. Resembling closer to a fighter jet than a space shuttle, it was exactly the thing Keith was hoping to find. Quickly, as to make up for the time he’d lost with the lock, he ran towards it and pulled himself up onto the wing so that he could reach the airlock. A small gasp of air interrupted the silence as the door gave way after he’d twisted the lock mechanism. As he entered the airship, pulling the door shut behind him and locking it from the inside, he turned to face the controls that stared lifelessly back at him.

It had only been a few months since he’d been kicked out, but he would recognize those controls anywhere. The same sense one gets when they return home ballooned in his chest as he settled into the pilot seat and started to flick the different controls into their on positions. Lights started to flicker on the control board and the radar blinked to life as electricity hummed through the cabin and the engine started to growl like a just woken beast. Another button pressed and the hangar doors started to pull apart, letting in a sliver of the last of the sunlight.

Yet another and the engines roared at the dusk.

Keith’s heart was banging against his chest, playing a stuttering rhythm against the bones of his ribcage as he started to input coordinates on the computer in the control board. He’d long memorized the exact numbers of the Kerberos moon, repeating them under his breath like a prayer each night until he fell asleep. Static started to fill the cabin as the radio began to pick up transmission from the control tower and he quickly shut it off. If they couldn’t speak to him, they couldn’t pinpoint exactly who was in the jet, which could only buy him a few more precious minutes. It was later than he’d already planned and he could see the small shadows that were running across the pavement towards him.

It was later than he’d anticipated, but not late enough to give the guards any hint of a chance to stop him.

With one final sweep of the control panel, comparing the flashing lights and switch positions to the memorized one that was burnt against his eyelids, Keith eased the jet forward as he settled into his seat and let himself fall back into his old self. The same self that once ruled the skies, second only to Shiro. Thanks to all the training from the Garrison, he could pilot the airship blindfolded. They probably didn’t realize they’d been training him to rob them later, but they also hadn’t realized they were sending Shiro and his team on a suicide mission either.

There were a lot of things they didn’t seem to realize.

A small bubble of hysterical laughter tickled the base of his throat as the aircraft started to speed up over the pavement, leaving the blackened shadows of the guards behind it as it began to tear towards the runway. Keith could vaguely make out the waving arms of one and the way another turned on its heel towards the shining Garrison. By the time the guards told any of the senior officers what had happened, and by the time they managed to get themselves prepared to follow,he would already be too far for them to bring back. Keith felt his lips curling into a genuine smile as the wheels of the airship started to lift off, nose lifting upwards towards the heavens.

He had done it. Keith would finally be able to solve the mystery about what had happened to Shiro and his team. As the aircraft stuttered in the air, wobbling against the clouds as it pulled its wheels in and he adjusted the controls for the wind conditions, he let out a sigh of relief. Barreling towards the twinkling stars that lay ahead of him, he finally let himself relax.

This was it.

Ahead, tucked amongst swirling nebulas, spinning moons and glowing stars, he would find his salvation, either in the form of the answers he so desperately craved or his own death.


	3. II.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Planned word count: 5k  
> Actual word count: 10k
> 
>  
> 
> ~~help im on the ground sobbing because of pre-kerberos sheith~~

**II.**

**Before.  
** The Garrison looked alien, shiny and chrome atop a sparkling black top with the rust colored dirt of the desert as its backdrop. As Keith looked at it for the first time, his threadbare canvas backpack slung over a red leather clad shoulder filled with all the belongings he’d ever owned, he saw his future. It was a glowing beacon of hope that he hadn’t ever known, and the bubbling emotion that was fizzing in the center of his chest was foreign to him. 

_Was it happiness?_

A heavy hand fell on his shoulder, the weight of it dragging him down momentarily with the force of an unknown jollity. 

“She’s gorgeous, ain’t she?” The military man asked, his gruff voice pitched solidly between the commanding he was used to, and the familial tone he was trying to manifest. Commander Iverson himself ran the Garrison with an iron fist that bordered on the edge of diplomatic authority and toed towards heavy handed dictatorship. Stories of his time on the front lines during the International War were well known far past the walls of the base, and even citizens spoke of the highly esteemed commander. 

_He’s tough, but he’s fair_ , they would whisper when they saw his officers running through the town a few miles outside of the post before the sun rose, sweat drenched and struggling to breathe as he pushed them further still. They didn’t give Silver Stars to men that didn’t earn them, and if the stories were true, he had earned his.

Towering over Keith with wide shoulders and thickly chorded arms, he looked down at him, his perpetually scowling mouth attempting to curve against their natural downturn into a reassuring smile. His right eye sparkled with pride as he waited for the new cadet’s answer, the left eye forever shut after losing it in battle. The paired effect of the grimace and obsidian gaze was more intimidating than it was welcoming and yet Keith couldn’t help but feel his own permanent scowl upturn at the corners. 

“She is, sir,” he agreed. They both ignored the thickness that filled his voice. When Iverson had arrived to pick him up at 8am sharp-- as discussed when Keith had called to accept the invitation from the county jail payphone-- he’d noticed the way no one sent the 14-year-old off. He’d just walked out of the house, swimming beneath a too big red jacket, tripping over the untied laces of his boots, and shaking the black mop on top of his head over his eyes to hide the way they gleamed. It wasn’t the first time he’d picked up a new cadet and seen the glassy eyed look that came with leaving home for the first time, but it was the first time the look was filled with the hope for a better life. 

After admiring the shimmering lines of the building, metal and glass coming together to create a glittering mirage as it reflected the blue sky, Iverson led Keith through the building on a tour. The Garrison was separated into several different areas that stretched over a 40 acre stretch of land. Its main building was the school where Keith would attend classes. Math, science, english and piloting classes would fill his days Monday through Friday, and he would be free on the weekends though with restrictions until he proved he could keep himself out of the county jail’s community holding cell. 

His eyes grew wide as Iverson pointed out the various classrooms, and wider still as they walked through the lobby where a polished jet hung from the beams of the ceiling. For the first time in his life, Keith felt as if he belonged. The sun that gleamed over the shining paint of the hanging aircraft mirrored the brightness of his mauve eyes as he took it all in. The awe had stilled his tongue in his mouth, but he mentally catalogued everything Iverson said as he gestured all around them. 

Leaving the main building, Keith followed the commander across the sun baked concrete towards a hangar next to it. A simple, dull metal warehouse, it didn’t hold the same outward appeal of the central campus, but once they’d stepped inside, he felt his heart lurch in his chest. There were six stations that broke up the space of the hangar, each occupied with white pods about the same size of a spaceship cockpit. Above each station were two LCD screens. The first running numbers and stats that Keith could only guess at, and the second showed live feed of what he assumed were the students inside the pods. 

“This is our simulator bay,” he felt Iverson’s look instead of seeing it, unable to turn away from the pods that were rocking in their stations. “Something tells me this is where we’ll find you most often. This is where your piloting classes will start, and only once you’ve cleared all 50 simulations will you be able to hop into the real deal. During the weekdays, the simulators are only open during classes, but on the weekends you can signup for as many practice sessions as you’d like.” 

The commander’s voice was a shade off fond as he watched the way Keith’s hands curled and uncurled as he itched to get his hands on the controls in one of the pods. As he continued to speak, outlining different rules and regulations for the sessions, the new cadet felt his eyes drawn toward a crowd that had begun to gather around the furthest pod from where their stood. Excited voices hummed and echoed off the metallic walls of the hangar as the students watched the screens that hung over the pod. A few stray cheers punctuated the air as the white machine shook and shuddered. From this distance, Keith couldn’t see much of the student piloting the simulation aside from a cropping of onyx hair and a squared jaw. 

“Let’s go get you set up in your room in the dormitory,” Iverson’s words cut through his thoughts as he squinted his eyes in order to make out the features of the cadet garnering the hoots and hollers. With a nod, and one last curious glance over his shoulder just long enough to see the confident smile on the screen, Keith followed the commander unaware that he would soon come to hate the cadet in that last simulator pod. 

***

His name was Takashi Shirogane, and the bastard was the bane of Keith’s existence. After his first day exploring the Garrison with Iverson, he’d been thrown into the deep end, heading straight into the classes that he was already five months behind in with nothing more than a “good luck” and “stay out of trouble.” It was during his first class-- pre-calculus, much to his dismay-- that he was introduced to Garrison Golden Boy Shiro. Already in a foul mood from starting his day at 7:30am with a bunch of numbers and letters that didn’t make any kind of sense, Keith was slumped forward at his desk. Lost in a daydream about cutting through clouds that were floating lazily across the azure sky just outside the classroom window, he’d missed the first time the teacher called on him to answer the question on the board. The second time, he’d shouted Keith’s name, startling an embarrassing squeak from him that only earned him a disapproving look and several snickers from his classmates. 

It was only made all the worse when he supplied the wrong answer. Then _he_ spoke up with all the confidence of a kid that had never known anything other than success. With his squared jaw, easy smile, laughter filled grey eyes, and correct answer, Shiro became the first person Keith decided he hated at the Garrison. So it didn’t shock him when he learned that he’d been the student that had drawn the crowd at the simulator the day prior. As the day had gone on, he’d heard the whispers that circulated through the other cadets as they spoke together between classes and at lunch.

_Did you see Shiro’s scores from yesterday?_

_He’s already passed eight of the simulations!_

_I don’t think anyone has ever been as good at flying as Shiro._

By the time he had walked into the hangar for his final class, Keith had been seething with a dislike for the cadet he hadn’t even traded a single word with. In every class, everything seemed to have come so easy to Shiro. He would list off only correct answers and earn wide grins from all the teachers as they applauded him for being so smart. Cadets flocked to him at every chance they got, earning that easy going smile of his like he knew he was a god amongst the peons. It was the kind of confidence that made Keith’s skin crawl and he wanted nothing more than to wipe that upturned smirk off Shiro’s face. If only for the simple satisfaction of being the first person to show him that not everything would always come so easily to him. 

Heading towards the pod that sat to the right of the one Shiro had chosen, Keith threw open the door, only to hear the distinct sound of a throat clearing behind him. His eyes were lasers as he turned to glare at his nemesis.

“Have a good first flight!” Shiro smiled that annoyingly bright smile of his as he shot Keith a thumbs up over the top of his pod. If he hadn’t already resigned himself to a life of hating him, maybe he would have admitted that it was a very nice smile. Without a word in return, the new cadet dropped down into the worn fabric seat of the pod and pulled the door shut behind him with a loud snap. After fastening himself into the safety harness, he let his eyes wander over the different switches, buttons and levers that made up the control panel of the simulator. 

Though he’d never driven anything other than stolen hovercrafts, Keith could make calculated guesses as to what each of the different switches did. Slowly gliding his palms over the worn plastic of the control wheel, he took a moment to memorize the feel of each crack and dent against his skin. Lights began to flicker in the mock cockpit before the screened windshield came to life with a scene of burning stars and distant planets. 

*****Simulation #14: Navigate the asteroid field*****

The simple instructions flashed across the screen three times before disappearing, only to be replaced by a countdown. 

**3...**

Keith breathed in as he started to flick different switches on the control panel.

**2...**

Breathing out, he pressed several buttons.

**1...**

Placing both hands on the control wheel and giving it a reassuring squeeze, he let himself fall into himself. The sound of the simulator fell away, replaced only by the roaring of his blood in his ears and his heart in his throat as he waited. Running his tongue over his bottom lip, he kept his eyes trained on the screen.

**Go.**

Pushing forward with all his might, the pod thrust in the same direction as the screen blurred with the speed that his simulated aircraft took off with. For just a moment, the windshield was filled with nothing but shimmering stars that swirled around him, sparkling like millions of fireflies in a dark field. Then hundreds of asteroids filled the air as if summoned by his own naive thoughts about the beauty of space. Pulling a hard right to avoid a rock that had appeared nearly right in front of him, Keith’s stomach plummeted with the sudden change of direction. There wasn’t time to think as another came rushing towards his windshield with an all too realistic grace. Up, left, down, left, right. He pulled the control wheel every which way as he maneuvered through the seemingly endless field of massive space rubble that was hurtling from every direction. As the exercise continued, he found himself settling into a comfortable rhythm as his pod shook with the speed he was pushing the simulator to as he continued to dodge the flying debris. Time slipped away from him as he got lost in the beauty of it all, enjoying the realism that had been poured into the simulation as he managed to avoid getting touched by any of the asteroids. Finally, after what could have been hours, the screen cleared of any hurtling space rock, leaving nothing but the universe ahead of him.

*****Simulation Completed: Pass*****

The words disrupted the scene as it flashed three times before it went blank, taking the swirling nebulae and twinkling stars with it. It wasn’t until the cockpit had fallen still that Keith felt the way his heart was beating against his ribs as if it was trying to jackhammer its way out of its cage. Making quick work of the harness, he threw the door open to be met with the wide eyed gazes of his classmates. Many of them stood with their mouths shaped into small o’s, but the only face Keith saw was Shiro’s. Standing outside of his pod, all that was visible was his body from his shoulders up as his classmate stared up at the screens over their stations. His eyes traced the cadet’s profile, following the expanse of his forehead, past his serious grey eyes, over the sharp curve of his nose and finally to his lips that were downturned in the corners with displeasure. Keith preened at the look that had twisted the confident smile downward for the first time that day, and he suspected Shiro’s whole life. Turning away from the troubled look of his classmate, he looked up towards the screens to see what had caused the discontent that colored Shiro’s features. Numbers ran along both sides, accumulating into a final readout. On Shiro’s screen, his time read 5:34:27.

On Keith’s, 5:35:01.

Less than a second stood between them, yet it felt like an eternity. It wasn’t good enough, and he wasn’t sure why everyone was looking at him with looks of awe as if he’d beaten the great Golden Boy. A small growl of anger curled at the base of his throat as he turned back to Shiro. His violet eyes met his steel as they held each other’s gazes, battles waging in the distance between them as they both fought for dominance. Keith was the first to look away, if only because his eyes dried out from staring too hard. Clearing his throat, he pointed a finger at the cadet.

“I’m going to beat you, Takashi Shirogane.”

***

A year passed as Keith continued to chase the Garrison’s number one cadet, always nipping at his heels but never quite catching him. Every time he thought he’d finally caught up, Shiro would dance just out of his grasp with his confident smile and a waggle of his eyebrows that told Keith he knew exactly what he was doing. It ignited a fire within the new cadet as he threw himself headfirst into his schooling, digging so deep within his studies that his former delinquentpast fell away like dust. His textbooks became his best friends as he spent his free time with his nose buried within their words, absorbing their knowledge and skimming ahead in the readings. 

Keith would take any advantage that was within his reach if it meant he got to see the flicker of confusion that would turn Shiro’s self-assured demeanor inside out whenever he beat him to answering their teachers’ questions. 

When he wasn’t lost in mathematical formulas, astronomical theories and linguistic analyses, Keith was tucked away in a simulator. Memorizing every detail of the replica and becoming familiar enough with the control wheel that he could tell you which pod he was in based just on the cracks that had formed in the leather, he spent more time with the fake space than he did any of his classmates. His hard work paid off as he and Shiro consistently alternated between first and second in their class, one only pulling ahead when the other was lulled into a false sense of security just long enough for the other to close the minuscule gap between their grades. The whispers he’d heard during that first day that had revolved around the Garrison’s prodigy started to become disrupted by the harsh syllable of his own name.

_Did you hear Keith got a higher grade on that astrophysics test than Shiro?_

_I heard Keith used to be a problem child, which is weird since he seems to work so hard._

_Shiro better watch out, Keith is really close to beating his simulator times._

A smile would threaten his features each time Keith heard his name on their tongues, the careful mask of studious thoughtfulness cracking as he preened at the muttered praise. He was sure there was some deep rooted psychological reasoning for his response to the attention. Something buried deep behind the numerous different last names he’d bore and the uncountable number of times he ended back in an orphanage. All he knew was that for the first time in his life, the things being whispered about him weren’t about his irresponsible and sometimes criminal behavior. Instead of being colored with the distrust and resignation he’d become accustomed to, their gazes sparkled with the iridescence of cautious admiration; both excited to see what he’d do next, but still weary of getting too close.

It was a comfortable symbiosis they created, his classmates hanging back at arms length to give him the space he needed to focus, and he delivered them an endless supply of excitement to pick apart amongst their groups of friends. All they wanted was something to talk about that didn’t revolve around their classes. All Keith wanted was to finally catch the Golden Boy.

Much like any other day, his classmates kept their distance as he sat alone at a table outside on the deck of the main building. The heated air tussled his black hair, the length along the back of his neck tickling at the collar of his black tank top, garish orange and cream jacket sitting abandoned on the table beside him. Sunlight beat down on his shoulders and bounced off the white pages of his notebook as he sketched out flight patterns. He had a theory about the next simulator, and if he could just crack the code on the right flight pattern, maybe today would be the day. Pencil scratching angrily against the page and nose scrunched, Keith plotted out a route that would get him out of the gravitational pull of a dying star and landing onto a nearby planet. The sharp bite of his canine against his bottom lip was the only other thing he was aware of as he pushed the lead against the paper.

At least, until a heavy weight dropped into the seat next to him, jostling the table enough to push a dent into the line he had been mapping. It was an offense that would have gained the intruder a sharp glare if the intruder hadn’t had humor filled steel eyes. The shock of them stole the air completely from his lungs as he registered that the person interrupting his plans to beat Shiro, had been Shiro himself.

“So what’s that?” His voice was light, filled with desert air and clouds as he leant his forearms onto the crisscrossing pattern of the metal table. It almost sounded as if he was talking to a friend. The breezy tone made Keith bristle as he pulled his notebook closer to him and narrowed his eyes.

“Funny, I don’t recall ever inviting you to bother me,” he shot back, letting his voice fall into its special blend of barbed wire and acid. It was a voice he’d reserved for foster parents when they’d started to push him away, and for particularly nosey classmates that didn’t know how to mind their own business. Problem was he hadn’t had foster parents for quite some time, and none of the other cadets had actually tried to distract him from his work, which left the tone in a sad state of disuse. Keith pretended not to notice the way his timbre wobbled, and that stupid way Shiro’s mouth quirked upwards in the right corner. 

“And I don’t recall needing to ask permission to sit outside.” The cadet pushed his fingers through the inky bangs that fell over his brow, the strands only falling back over the bridge of his nose once they were released. His storm eyes watched Keith, waiting for his retort and burning the skin of his cheeks. Everything about Shiro screamed “gifted.” Even though they were both 15 years old, he had already begun to fill out, shoulders stretching wide as he’d shot upwards. The baby fat that still rounded the point of Keith’s jaw had melted away in his, leaving jagged squared edges. His skin was golden, touched just enough by the sun that it glowed with its perpetual light, a handful of freckles dusting the bridge of his nose. Shiro was everything Keith imagined a great pilot of the Garrison to be, down to the starlit smile and the tempest eyes. 

A single drop of sweat trailed down the sharp bone of his spine that peeked over the edge of his top, tickling as it traveled the length of his back as he tore his glare away from his company for a moment of reprieve. 

“Like there aren’t plenty of other tables to sit at.” Keith return his gaze as he said it, eyes instead scanning the empty tables that surrounded him and the few curious glances from cadets that walked by. 

“Maybe I wanted to sit here,” Shiro said quickly, the smile bright enough that it made his words glow. It was the kind of cocky statement that made Keith want nothing more than to punch that stupid grin off his face. 

“Couldn’t let me have a table, huh, Shirogane?” His voice was glass and gravel as he returned his mauve gaze to his unwelcome guest. Was it not bad enough that he had everything Keith wanted, he had to have his table too? Was nothing sacred? He dropped the pencil that he had been clutching in his fist on top of his notebook before he crossed his arms over his thin chest in an attempt to look defensive and closed off. It was a trick he’d learned over the years that would make people feel uncomfortable enough to make them leave. Only Shiro apparently didn’t get the memo, only leaning in closer, galaxies dancing in the deep grey of his eyes.

“Is it really so hard to believe I would want to share your company?” The words resonated with the foreign ring of authenticity. For a moment, Keith actually believed that he genuinely wanted to speak with him. It was a fleeting instant as he remembered that in the past year, Shiro had only spoken to him twice. The first time, at the flight simulators when he’d wished him luck. The second a few weeks later when they’d bumped into each other leaving class and he’d apologized. 

“It is, actually. We’re enemies, remember?” Shiro’s eyebrow arched comically at the title as he cocked his head. 

“I don’t remember ever agreeing to be your enemy.” His voice danced with mirth and curiosity as he watched Keith with an intensity that made his skin crawl. It felt as if he was an animal being observed, and he didn’t like it. A beat passed as the words settled between the both of them. Keith had never considered that Shiro didn’t see him as his nemesis as well, and the realization stung his pride. One part of him wanted to pursue the conversation, ask why he wasn’t good enough for the other cadet to consider him as his adversary. Another wasn’t sure he’d like the answer.

“What do you want?” Keith finally growled, sitting up straighter in his chair as he narrowed his eyes at his unwanted companion. His answer came accompanied by a languid shrug of a boxy shoulder.

“Look, I think we could make great friends.” Shiro laid his cards out for Keith to see as he continued, sincerity dripping over each word. “Maybe you see me as an enemy, but I see you as inspiration. Before you got here, no one else was giving me a reason to try harder. You push me to be better, and that sounds like a friend to me.”

As the words blew away on the breeze, their eyes locked in a static charged fight of glowing steel and gleaming violet. Silence filled the air around the table as they battled for dominance, Keith fighting against the welcoming, easygoing satin gaze like a feral dog. Kindness like the one Shiro was offering almost always came with a price. Instinct told Keith to push it as far away as possible. In his experience, most would have let him. 

It didn’t seem Shiro was like most.

As he waited for a response, his self-assured grin pulling his lips upward as if he had already won, it occurred to Keith that he’d never been told no. It would be so easy to pull the rug from under him and knock him down. He could imagine the sweet taste of triumph on the tip of his tongue as he envisioned the shocked look that would twist that smirk into a frown of disbelief. It would be so easy, and yet Keith realized he couldn’t do it. 

Though he’d regarded Shiro as his nemesis this entire time, he couldn’t deny that his very presence had pushed Keith to try harder than he’d ever tried for anything in his life. Without even knowing it, he’d made a far bigger mark on his existence than any other person before. The realization twisted angrily in the pit of his stomach. In the past year, Takashi Shirogane had managed to make him strive to be better merely by being better than him. It was infuriating. When he finally spoke, his voice was thick with a calm bitterness and sour resignation.

“Call it what you want, Shirogane. I’m still going to beat you.” 

Shiro chuckled as he pushed back the chair back, the metal legs protesting loudly against the concrete. Standing swiftly, his shadow fell over Keith and offered a small reprieve from the blazing sun. Almost as soon as it had settled over him, it disappeared as the cadet started to walk away, voice slicing through the desert air like an arrow that buried itself deep within his chest.

“Catch me if you can, Keith Kogane.”

***

“I can’t believe the first disciplinary mark on my record here is going to be because of the Golden Boy,” Keith drawled as he struggled against the steep incline of the hill Shiro had insisted they climb in the middle of the night, hours after the curfew all cadets were meant to follow. A loud, boisterous laugh was the only answer he received from the darkened shape ahead of him. With nothing but the moonlight to brighten their path, the only way Keith kept track of the dark haired teen leading the way was by the inky Shiro shaped shadow that blocked out the stars on the horizon. 

A year had passed since that fateful day he’d invited himself to sit at Keith’s table and interrupt his studies, and ever since, Shiro had made himself a permanent fixture in his life. 

Not that he hadn’t already been one, but now he was fixture that had chosen to be there. It had started slowly, their friendship growing from the cracks in their competitive foundation until it overtook the infertile ground with a fully bloomed rapport. Now when their classmates whispered, their names always stood together with a conjunction between them.

_Did you see that Shiro and Keith were working on flight patterns together?_

_I heard Keith and Shiro get private lessons from Iverson because they’re so close to completing the simulations._

_Shiro and Keith are unstoppable, why do we even try for first or second?_

It had been disconcerting at first, the other students finally breaking the silent pact they’d made with Keith in order to flock around Shiro as they hung together. He’d never noticed how they all seemed to hang from every word he said until they were all crowding in his space, demanding the attention that Shiro only seemed to want to spend on Keith. At first he was certain their classmates would see him for the fraud he was, the stoic newcomer that had marked the popular student as his enemy bending at the first sign of kindness from his so called nemesis. Afterwards, he realized their focus remained on Shiro when they packed around the table they sat at together, barely paying him any mind unless he was asked a question by the object of their affection. 

Once upon a time, it would have stoked the fires of jealousy deep in his gut until he tried to burn Shiro’s empire down. Now, he found himself swept up in the carefree way his friend conducted himself. Nothing bothered him, and everything came so naturally as if he was doing something as easy as breathing when he guided his simulated aircraft over the chunky ice of Saturn’s ring before landing on its surface. Everyone’s admiration made sense now that Keith was a part of the life they looked up to. Up close, he realized that Shiro was Polaris in a deserted town of blown out stars, his ambition making him radiate a ferocity that was blinding. Always on the edge of a supernova, he outshined everyone that surrounded him, and they were all too happy to just bask in his light.

“Keith, if you don’t walk any faster, I’m going to leave you for the coyotes to find,” Shiro’s voice cut through the din of his thoughts and dropped him back into the cool, dark desert. 

“I’d rather take my chances with the coyotes than with Iverson if you get us caught out here,” he shot back, breath huffing as he jogged up the hill to catch up to the shadow that had paused at the crest of the hill. Keith ignored the way his heart stuttered as an arm fell over his shoulders once he’d made it to Shiro’s side. 

_It was the exertion from the steep incline._

“I’m hurt you would think I would get us caught.” Strands of hair tickled his cheek as Shiro’s breath pushed them over the sharp curve of the bone there. 

“Let me rephrase, you’re going to get me caught. They won’t do anything to you, you’re Takashi Shirogane.” His voice wrapped around his friend’s name as if it was a fragile thing, padding it with silk and cashmere as the syllables rolled off his tongue. Laughter shook them both as the other cadet rocked with his mirth.

“You think very little of yourself, Keith Kogane.” A thrill rocked through him as Shiro pronounced his name, the sharp consonants bouncing off the back of his teeth as he drew out the sound of his last name. He silently prayed his friend didn’t notice the way he tensed beneath his arm as the sensation tickled his spine. They continued to walk together over the flat surface of the plateau, neither speaking as Shiro left his arm on Keith’s shoulders, both ignoring the strong beat of the latter’s heart in his throat.

Recently, Keith had noticed a strange feeling that was growing behind his ribs. Something between a mix of cotton balls and battery acid had begun to bloom deep within his chest cavity, roaring to life whenever he was in the same vicinity of his classmate, which was almost always. Most days he was able to ignore it, managing to capture breaths through the stifling weight that threatened to collapse his lungs, but then there were moments where he would catch the way the sun would lighten Shiro’s eyes into two orbs of sparkling starlight and he was certain he would suffocate right then and there. Keith knew the simple solution would be to just not see him as often to avoid the crushing sensation. The only problem was that he wasn’t sure he disliked the oppressive weight on his lungs. It was the kind of pain that was satisfying, like the sharp sting of a tongue pressed to a cut on a lip, and he often found himself poking it over and over again just to enjoy the way it made him feel.

They crossed the distance over the plateau in silence, not needing to fill the quiet with unnecessary chatter as they took in the stark beauty of the desert at midnight. Shadowed chain fruit chollas twisted like dancing bodies overlooking the vegetation and animals that scattered at their feet. Heat hardened bushes snagged against the hem of their jeans like snapping birds, their burs breaking off with the distinct snapping of brittle twigs. Keith had traveled the country, bouncing around from home to home. He’d seen the multicolored leaves that flickered like fire over mountains in Fall; seen crystalline waves beating against white sand in the summer; and even danced amongst snow flurries that tangled in the waves of his dark hair like frozen glitter. Yet none of it compared to the desert that stretched ahead of him, bathed in the cold light of the moon and bleached to the same color of bone. It was beautiful. 

He fought the urge to catch a glance of the boy beside him, wanting more than anything to see the way the stars accented the sharp planes of his cheekbones. Instead, he kept his eyes focused on the ground ahead of them as Shiro kept him secured to his side. It wasn’t until they reached the edge of the mesa that he let his arm fall from Keith’s shoulders as he settled himself onto the ground, legs dangling over the ledge. Soft pats of his palm against the red dirt echoed through the otherwise quiet night as he beckoned Keith to join him. The sharp snap of the tendons in his knees popping punctuated the air around them as he lowered himself onto the hardened earth, one leg swinging lazily over the plateau and the other tucked beneath him. Keith tried to ignore the static shock that jolted his knee as it knocked against Shiro’s. 

“We’re gonna be up there one day.” His timbre was molten lava as he spoke, twinkling like the lights up in the sky he referred to. For just a moment, Keith allowed himself to imagine the pair of them, sitting side-by-side in a cockpit, surrounded by nothing but swirling nebulae and undiscovered planets. He imagined the way Shiro would stare out over the galaxy, that smile that cracked his features in two and crinkled the edges of his eyes lighting his face. 

“You know, it’s been a year since we became friends,” Shiro continued, moving his melted steel gaze from the skyline to his friend, the corners of his eyes crinkling with that very same mirth Keith had just imagined. It almost felt as if Keith was the very starlight they both desired to dance among.

“Are you counting that day you interrupted my plans for simulator domination as the day we became friends?” He couldn’t bite back the laugh that rocked his smaller frame as he took in Shiro’s scandalized look and it echoed over the mesa. Soft skitters scratched over the dry ground as the hidden creatures around them tried to run from the sudden, boisterous sound. 

“Do you not?” The cadet’s eyebrows stitched together with genuine curiosity as he waited for an answer.

If Keith was being honest, he didn’t know when he realized Shiro was his friend. Like a slow growing vine, the cadet in which he’d measured his own success against had increased his presence in his life gradually. It hadn’t been until he was wrapped within the vine and vegetation that he’d even noticed that he was completely wrapped up in everything that Shiro was. As they sat together, a thickness growing between the barely there space between their arms, Keith tried to even remember what it had felt like to hate him for being everything he had wanted to be. The jealousy that had once fueled his ambition felt foreign as it sat like a stone in the back of his throat. He had been so hellbent on tearing everything Shiro had built down so that he could build something of his own, unaware that they could construct something indestructible together.

_Wasn’t life funny?_

Lost in his thoughts, Keith didn’t notice the way his friend leant towards him. Though Shiro had grown taller still in the year that had passed, now standing nearly a head taller than Keith, he curled into himself so that he could drop his head onto his shoulder, black hair tickling the skin over his friend’s hummingbird quick pulse. Sweet almond and earthy mint filled Keith’s senses as the cooled air stirred the strands of Shiro’s hair. Time paused as it watched the pair staring up at the heavens.

“You’re my best friend, you know,” Keith’s voice was a whisper, low enough to mask the confession from them both. Blood screamed in his ears as he waited for his friend to respond, his heart racing so quickly that it left him lightheaded. It wasn’t necessarily a lie, Shiro was his best friend. In fact, he was the only friend he’d ever had, never staying in any place long enough to make one and pushing anyone that tried away so their efforts wouldn’t be wasted. The words felt weighted with something else, something bigger than just best friends as he spoke them, and he was worried that would scare him away. Acid and cotton pushed into his ribs, struggling to breathe as Shiro nuzzled his head into the sharp point of Keith’s shoulder.

“You’re mine, too,” he said, voice rough with an emotion neither of them recognized, and that neither of them tried to. They were three words carrying the weight of something foreign, and while it wasn’t a lot, it was enough. They both fell into a comfortable silence, eyes tracing constellations in the stars as they let their thoughts roam over the boy beside them.

 

***

Whiskey burned a smooth line down Keith’s throat, the liquid fire dragging its blaze into his chest and settling deep within his gut. Hollers and explosions filled the night air as shimmering sparkles rained down from the firework that had combusted overhead. Its light blotted out the stars behind it, momentarily blinding him as he let the glittering flecks burn white dots into his vision. Once they’d faded, the flash fading back into darkness and the sound of his friends scrambling to set up the next firework interrupting the otherwise silent night, Keith let his gaze flicker towards the tallest of the bunch. The glowing light of the flame that ignited the explosive’s charge danced over the sharp lines of Shiro’s jaw, illuminating the smile that showed his teeth before he and the three other cadets ran out of the blast zone. 

_Not cadets_ , he reprimanded himself as he watched the firework shoot into the air from the safety of his perch on the edge of the cliff. _Graduates_. 

The past two years had come and gone in a blur as he and Shiro had pushed through their academics, passed their simulations and finally gotten into real cockpits. They’d even managed to expand from a duo to a quintet as they’d navigated through the last of their mandatory schooling. 

Keith watched as Pidge, Hunk and Lance all laughed, mouths stretched wide as they waited for the flash of light that would brighten the air over them. It was Pidge who had approached them first, nothing but wild tawny hair and large hazel eyes made even bigger by wire rimmed glasses that took up half of her face. When she’d stopped in front of their table during dinner, scowl turning her thin mouth down and hands on her small hips, Keith distinctly remembered thinking about how the freshman that year seemed to be smaller than usual.

_I’m not used to being bested by anyone, let alone two people_ , she’d said as she fixed the pair with a venomous glare. The look had been enough for Shiro to drop the fork that had been on its way to his mouth and hear her out. Shiro’s interest had been enough for Keith to shrug in nonchalant approval when she’d asked if they could start working together. 

Lance had been the next to fall into their group. Nothing but limbs and a smarmy smile, he’d continuously challenged Keith during simulations, claiming that he would be the one to finally catch up to Shiro’s flight times. Problem was, it seemed everyone heard his challenges except the cadet they’d been aimed at. Each day, Lance would shoot barbed words in his direction, and each day Keith would beat his simulator score before rejoining Shiro after class as if Lance didn’t even exist. Maybe it was the fact that Shiro understood the competitive nature that Keith could bring out in people that caused him to extend an invitation to their friend group.

Maybe he’d seen something familiar in his aquamarine eyes.

Or maybe he thought he was funny and wanted Keith to put up with Lance’s insufferable mouth. Whatever it was, the loud mouthed cadet became another piece of their misfit puzzle, constantly talking, constantly making fun of Keith’s hair, and constantly working every last one of his nerves.

The best part about Lance joining the fold was that he brought Hunk with him. Excellent at cooking, funny in the exact way his best friend was not, and proven to be the voice of reason amongst the two, the engineering student was what made having Lance around bearable. At first Keith had wondered why they came as a packaged deal, until he realized that they were attached by the same conjunction that connected him with Shiro when their names rolled from their classmates’ mouths. 

It didn’t take long before their whispers shifted yet again, encompassing the small gang they’d created.

_Did you see the Garrison Five today?_

_So I hear the Garrison Five would make the best mission team._

_I can’t wait for the Garrison Five to graduate so someone else can finally shine._

Though he’d been indifferent in the beginning, not needing anyone other than Shiro, Keith eventually came around to their small pack. Often times he would find himself wondering if the warm feeling that spread over his heart when they were together was how it felt to have a family. 

Another loud pop and more shimmering and shaking golden dust that scattered down around them drew his attention back to the present, catching his best friend’s eye as the firework’s light diminished. The alcohol in his veins made his fingertips buzz with the energy of a thousand bees.Across the distance of dark dirt and brush, Shiro smiled, his eyes crinkling at the edges in the way that Keith loved. 

Yes, _loved_. 

It had taken two years for him to finally understand that that was what the swelling weight that shifted under his ribs was. A year and a half, to be exact. The moment of realization came in the form of a sudden, burning fury when Shiro had announced he had been asked on a date by one of their classmates, and he’d said yes. He’d choked on the sour taste of jealousy as it had threatened to suffocate him as he’d ushered his friend off, assuring him that he looked just fine and would have a great time. His chest had cracked itself open as the door had slid shut behind Shiro, leaving Keith alone in his room with nothing but his completely exposed heart bleeding out in his hands. It was a searing pain that had left him gasping for breath, lungs screaming against the cage of his ribs as they begged for oxygen. Panic had started to rush through his veins as tears streamed down his face and blinded him, melting the room into a muddle of generic beige and tans. It had hurt so bad that Keith did the only thing he could think to do.

He shoved his fist into the nearest wall.

At the time, he’d been looking to feel anything else beside the way his sternum had been constricting around the hunk of flesh that had been beating erratically in his chest. In the end, it turned out to be a stupid plan that had fractured his hand in three places, opened his eyes to the bitter realization that he was in love with his best friend, and effectively ended Shiro’s date after just 45 minutes. At least one of those things had worked out in his favor.

The sharp prod of a finger between his eyebrows broke his concentration, his eyes focusing to find themselves staring deep into two silver pools.

“You keep thinking that hard and you’ll get a permanent line between your eyes,” Shiro laughed. His voice was slick with mirth and whiskey, the woody smell of the alcohol masking his already earthy scent. He sat back on his haunches, not even a foot from Keith’s space and his arms fought to wrap themselves around his best friend’s neck and close the distance between them. Cotton and acid pressed against his lungs.

_Breathe in. Breathe out._

“Maybe it’ll make me look mean, and we’ll stop picking up strays,” Keith said, smiling through the throbbing that was pushing its way through the cracks of his ribs. A bark of laughter was his reward as Shiro dropped his hand.

“It’s too late, Keith. The secret’s out. You’re a nice guy.” When he said his name, Keith could have sworn it sounded like a caress. The hard consonant faded into the soft ending in the same way electricity would spark on his skin with Shiro’s touch before it dissipated. 

“Did you ever think that maybe I’m just a nice guy to you?” The smaller of the two wrapped a fist around the neck of his whiskey bottle and threw back a large gulp to distract himself from the way his best friend’s eyes sparkled in the moonlight at his words. Chatter filled the air as their friends talked behind them, recounting the graduation ceremony they’d had earlier that evening.

“Can you believe we’re finally graduated?” He heard Hunk say.

“Not that it matters, we still have training to do.” Lance’s whine was distinct even from that distance.

“But no more classes,” Pidge piped up, her voice matter-of-fact, as it always was.

“When you got here, did you think this was how you’d be spending your last night as just another cadet?” Shiro’s timbre drowned at the rest as he dropped himself onto the earth next to him, the adjustment moving him close enough for Keith to feel the warmth rolling off his skin. His mind ran blank for just a moment as he imagined what it would feel like to burn within that heat.

“I sure as hell didn’t think I’d be sitting here with you.” The chuckle was low in his throat, caught between the whiskey and desire he was trying so hard to bury.

More cotton. More acid.

_Breathe in. Breathe out._

A sturdy shoulder knocked against his, pushing him away before his body rolled back to its former position, resting against the offender that had hit it in the first place. Shiro’s body was rocking with his laughter. 

“Well, I’m glad you are,” his best friend’s voice was a fusion of mirth and melted chocolate as he spoke. They both fell into silence as they passed the whiskey bottle between them as they listened to the sound of their friends setting off the last of the fireworks. As the night wore on, alcohol and fireworks both disappearing, Pidge, Hunk and Lance all said their goodbyes until all that was left was Shiro, Keith and the constellations above them. With just the two of them, time became an irrelevant thing, marching on without either caring enough to pay attention to it until the sky started to change color and rays of sunlight broke over the horizon. Electricity had started to spark in the air around them as they’d sat alone together, talking about everything and nothing at once, until Keith was sure it would burn away all his skin. 

“We should probably go back to the dorms, huh?” Shiro asked, eyes bright with whiskey and cheeks flushed a peony pink. Keith wanted nothing more than to brush his fingertips over that blush.

“We should,” he replied, voice filled with the gravel he’d packed on top of his cotton and acid.

_Breathe in. Breathe out._

Knocking arms against each other as they made their way back to the dorms, all sense of boundaries lost between them long ago, neither spoke for fear of breaking the delicate balance that seemed to be shifting beneath them. Each step felt as if it dropped another stone onto the scales, and fear was suddenly driving Keith’s heart at a racehorse’s pace as he realized that everything was about to change. It was the same kind of oppressive foreshadowing that proceeded a major cataclysmic event. He could feel it coming, but was helpless to stop it.

As they’d walked, Shiro had pulled ahead as they’d neared Keith’s room, shoulders tensed under the soft fabric of his grey shirt. Keith let himself wonder what it would feel like to drag a finger over the V of the blade the fabric clung to. His best friend didn’t stop until he stood in front of his door, turning to face him with eyes filled with trepidation.

“Keith,” he breathed. It was filled with so much air it almost sounded inappropriate in a fully lit hallway. A small thrill ghosted up his spine. 

Cotton. Acid.

_Breathe in. Breathe out._

“That was fun,” Keith said awkwardly, voice too bright as he fished his keys out of his pocket. With a quick flick of his wrist, he unlocked the deadbolt and pushed it open, trying to ignore the burning sensation of the stare on his back and the choking weight in his lungs. 

“Keith.” Shiro’s voice was more forceful as he spoke, making him pause. Door open and body halfway over the threshold, Keith counted the many different options for how to respond and went over every possible outcome in the span of three seconds. Maybe if alcohol wasn’t clouding his judgement, and maybe if it didn’t feel like his insides were being pulled apart, he would have walked into his room and shut the door. Turning just enough to look over his shoulder, Keith smiled at his best friend. 

It was the only invitation Shiro needed as he pushed himself forward, one hand finding his arm and the other brushing over the length of Keith’s jaw as his fingers twisted into the black waves that fell over his ear. They both stumbled into the darkness of Keith’s room as Shiro pressed their lips together, lighting the volatile mixture of acid and cotton in his chest on fire with the soft pressure. It felt as if he was everywhere at once as they tripped over each other, door slamming shut behind them and leaving them in complete darkness. Bringing his other hand to cup Keith’s jaw, Shiro pressed further into the kiss, tongue dragging against the fullness of his best friend’s bottom lip. It was enough to steal his breath away, Keith’s gasp catching in Shiro’s mouth as he pushed further still. 

Tongues licked the back of teeth. 

Breathing grew heavy. 

Fire was coursing through Keith’s veins as he snaked his arms around his best friend’s neck to pull him closer. Everything felt right as they explored each others mouths, crushing their bodies together and trying to say everything they needed to say without saying anything at all. 

_I’ve always wanted you_ , Keith said with a curled fist in Shiro’s hair.

_I need you_ , Shiro said with teeth sinking into Keith’s lip.

Time continued to march on, lost to them as they marked the end of their friendship and the start of something more. As they made their way to Keith’s bed, bodies led by muscle memory, a single thought punctuated the blaze that had stolen his senses.

_Their first kiss tasted of whiskey and mint._

***

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/137817028@N07/37999391812/in/dateposted-public/)

Keith read the words with the faint bitterness of disappointment sitting in the middle of his tongue. The mission had been announced just three years after the Garrison Five had graduated from the academy. It was a once in a lifetime opportunity to be a part of the first team to travel sofar through the solar system to harvest ice from one of Pluto’s moons, and he’d practically salivated at the idea of piloting a ship so far into space. In just two years time, three people-- one pilot and two scientists-- would be sent out to Kerberos. 

Each member of the Garrison Five had gone for positions on the team, and each received a rejection letter except him and Shiro. They had been the last in the running to pilot the craft that would make history. At least, had been until Keith had checked the mail that was sitting on his desk when he’d gotten to the Garrison that morning. It would only mean that they’d chosen Shiro as the pilot for the mission, a bittersweet realization that dredged up the long forgotten feeling of acid eating away at the space around his lungs. 

_It doesn’t matter which one of us gets it,_ he’d said to Shiro the night it was announced as he nuzzled his nose into the space behind his lover’s ear, their skin pressed together in bed as they looked up at the stars the glittered outside their window. He hadn’t lied when he’d spoken the words. Their accomplishments were shared as Keith found almost as much pride in Shiro’s achievements as if they were his own, and vice versa. Together, they’d become the top officers at the Garrison, and soon their former classmates stopped even separating their names when they spoke of them.

_They got the simulator instructor positions again._

_They’re leading the next moon mission._

_They’ve received the Garrison honors award. Again._

As the years passed, Shiro and Keith had continued to push each other to the limits of their abilities, flying faster and further until they were so far ahead and no one could reach them. Even Iverson had fallen behind, watching them with the look of a mentor that had nothing left to teach.Proud, and defeated. They were the pride of the Garrison, Shiro always standing tall in first place and Keith just barely behind him in second. It was their life, and it was more than enough because though he was in second place, he’d had everything he ever wanted. He finally had a family that wasn’t as arbitrary as one deemed by blood. 

He finally understood what it felt like to have a home.

Shiro had been destined to get the piloting position, and Keith had known all along that it would be Takashi Shirogane listed next to the title when the team was finally announced. The small part of him that reared against his chest with the defeat was quickly snuffed out by something bigger than him. Something lighter, and much more precious. He didn’t need a once in a lifetime mission.

Keith already had everything he could want. 

He repeated the mantra as he went through his day, teaching the latest batch of recruits about the simulators and checking on the latest numbers from the current Mars mission. 

Repeated it as his motorcycle tore over the cracked ground of the red desert, kicking up dust cloud and rocks.

Repeated it still as he thrust his key into the lock of the shack that he and Shiro called home.

With a steadying breath, he pushed the door open and pasted a cut up smile onto his face as he searched for a smoke gaze to get lost in. It was impossibly quiet in the small home, the only sound to be had was that of his breathing until the door of their home slammed shut behind him, effectively thrusting his heart up into his throat.

Shiro sat on their bed in the silence, hands folded in his lap and eyes turned downward, shoulders sagging as if the weight of the world were resting against them. It wasn’t the face of someone that had just learned they were piloting a historical mission. 

“Shiro, what’s wrong?” Keith’s voice was filled with a light shade of panic as he closed the short distance that stood between their doorway and the corner they’d deemed as their bedroom. The bed springs protested as he dropped himself onto the mattress beside Shiro, concern etching itself over his face, working lines around the corners of his mouth and between his eyebrows. A beat passed as Shiro kept his eyes on his hands that were fisted together.

“I got it,” he finally said, almost too low to be heard. The juxtaposition of his demeanor and the words almost made Keith laugh. It almost felt as if someone had died instead of just nailed down their chance at greatness. 

“I know. And you should be celebrating instead of looking like someone just ran over your dog.” His tone was matter-of-fact as he he fixed his wine stained gaze on Shiro’s sagging shoulders.

“But you wanted it, Keith.” A bolt of electricity stole his breath and a beat of his heart as the words fell between them. His confidence wavered as the meaning behind the words settled deep in his chest. Shiro was beating himself up for having what Keith wanted, not allowing himself to celebrate his victory due to his own defeat. The acidic taste of jealousy that had been coating the back of his tongue all day suddenly vanished, pushed away by the aching hole in the base of his throat that yearned only to see Shiro smile.

“Yes, but I’ve wanted a lot of things in the past, and I haven’t gotten a lot of things in the past. It isn’t the first time, and it won’t be the last.” Knocking his shoulder into Shiro’s in hope of coaxing a grin from his downturned lips, Keith looked up through his bangs in a poor imitation of puppy dog eyes. “I’ll just get the next one.”

“The mission is a year long,” his voice faltered, fear of the time lost heavy in his words.

“So what? I’m not going anywhere.” Keith said with a shrug, ignoring the way his stomach flipped at the thought of missing his best friend for a year. “You’ll go to Kerberos, I’ll stay down here and curse you for being so gifted, then you’ll come home and we’ll have lots of sex to make up for the time you wasted on a distant moon.” 

Keith brought his hand up, dragging it over the hard line of Shiro’s chest, over the sharp incline of his collarbone and up over the stretch of his neck until his thumb was able to stroke the crest of his cheek. Dark eyelashes fluttered against skin as his breath hitched at the contact. With his palm flush against Shiro’s pulse, Keith could feel the heartbeat that beat steadily against his own skin. His heart squeezed as he took in how vibrant and alive the man in front of him was. Sunlight dancing over his golden skin and freckles dotting constellations over the bridge of his nose, Shiro looked every bit the hero he was always destined to be. In that moment, Keith knew he couldn’t possibly love him any more. Closing the distance between them, Keith pressed a chaste kiss to Shiro’s lip, smiling into the soft pressure as he felt the pulse leap under his touch. Sweet almond and mint dripped from his lips as Keith breathed him in, letting the taste of him fill his senses. Though it was an innocent touch, a barely there kiss that they’d shared a million times before, he felt an electric shock that ran straight down deep into the toes of his boots.

Keith often wondered if Shiro would ever stop having that effect on him. He hoped not. Pulling away just enough to press their foreheads together, his crushed velvet eyes found silver.

“I can’t believe my boyfriend is about to be a military hero,” he laughed, voice a shade away from breathy. Shiro’s eyes glinted as he rolled them upwards towards the ceiling before he fisted his hands into the collar of his jacket.

“Shut up,” he growled as he pulled Keith down with him onto their bed. Light fell over them as they deepened the kiss and pushed the clothing from their shoulders. Keith’s heart danced over the slope of his ribs as he let himself get lost in everything Shiro was. Sweet almond and earthy mint. Teeth on shoulders. Tongues on skin. Time was theirs and tucked away in their home, away from everyone and everything, it was just them and it would be like that forever.

Even if they’d lose a year of it to outer space.

***

**After.  
** Red lights filled the screens of the cockpit as alarms screamed their warnings at Keith as if he didn’t already know he was going to die. 

Fuel was low. 

Oxygen was low.

It didn’t matter anyway. Shiro was gone. The darkened soil of Kerberos’ surface and the debris that was littered across it confirmed what he suspected he’d already known.

He was gone and he was never coming back. 

Whispered voices of the other officers swirled through his mind, cutting through the din of the alarms and taunting him with their truths.

_I can’t believe they crashed._

_Didn’t they say it was pilot error?_

_I guess Shiro wasn’t unstoppable after all._

It was funny how quickly their admiration had turned to disappointment, as if one error was worth more than a lifetime of achievements. Where were the cadets that had flocked to their table in an attempt to earn one of Shiro’s smiles? The classmates that had clapped him on the back for beating yet another one of his best times? How often had they talked him up, only to turn their backs as soon as he’d fallen. 

His acid thoughts soaked the cotton that stuffed itself deep into his lungs.

_Breathe in. Breathe out._

The ship had managed to make it half of the trip back before the alarms had started to sound and the lights had started to flicker, warning him that without a refill soon he’d be plunged into darkness and choked of his oxygen. Not that the air wasn’t already being stolen from his lungs by the crushing weight that had taken hold of his chest. 

His hands flew over the control panel, flicking off the ship’s engines and alarms, leaving only the emergency lights on to keep him company in the silence. Staring out of the now cleared windshield screen, Keith could see the stars that sparkled around him. The simulators hadn’t done them any justice at all. Time stopped for him, pausing the hands that constantly moved it forward so that he could settle himself low into the pilot seat and take in the galaxy that they’d both dreamed of. Stuck in the crushed velvet of the unending darkness of deep space were the stars they’d loved to look up at, tracing new constellations and giving them new names that only they would ever know. His vision started to fall in and out of focus, the twinkling lights blurring into the inky darkness they were shrouded in. 

_We’re gonna be up there one day._

A small smile tugged the corner of his mouth upwards as his eyelids grew heavy. Keith’s lungs started to rasp as they fought to take in the oxygen that was no longer in the cabin.

“We made it, Shiro,” he whispered into the empty cockpit. The base of his throat burned and stretched as his body began to panic in search of the air it needed to survive. It started as a deep seeded ache before it faded into a heaviness that spread through Keith’s limbs as darkness started to eat away at his vision, edges blurring until the only thing he could make out was a bright light that began to fill the cabin. 

For just a fleeting moment, Keith let himself wonder if that light was something better. If that light would lead him back to Shiro.

A final, shuddering gasp rattled in his lungs before Keith was plunged into a blinding light. 

Then it all went black.


	4. III.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uh, hi. This isn't dead lol Now that I have a wee bit more time and can focus on this the way it deserves, updates will actually happen like once a month. At least.

**III.**

 

Dry air cracked and split the inside of Keith’s chest cavity, leaving his lungs shriveled and screaming with each pained breath he took as he stared up at the ceiling of his cell. Something about the fissures that marked the dark stone almost rang symbolic, as if it was mirroring the way his own life had splintered and buckled beneath the weight of everything.

Dragging another harsh breath through his dry lips, he let the ceiling fall in and out of focus. Tracing the lines had long lost its appeal, and now he just let his mind wander back and forth over what exactly he’d done wrong.

Not, that there was anything he thought he could have done to avoid his current situation. It was nothing more than the ever continuous running joke that was his life that had landed him a prisoner to an alien race on a planet that was exactly like the desert he had been desperately trying to escape.

When he’d first woken to find himself being pulled forcefully from the cockpit of his ship, he’d fought back. Hurling fists, insults and bitter rage, Keith had managed to draw first blood until the sharp prick of a needle had sent him careening back into the darkness that he’d originally thought was death.

The second time, he woke to the drab, dark walls of his all too small cell with its strange cracked rock ceiling and he’d screamed. It was a torn, visceral thing that echoed off the claustrophobic walls and down the halls, leaving nothing but deafening silence in its wake.

The third time, he woke to the sting of barely scabbed wounds and the ache of bruised ribs from his first fight in the arena, and he laughed. Hollowed and pointed, Keith unloaded all of his pain on the back of his brittle, humorless mirth, because in the end it was funny.

So fucking funny that after dedicating his life to the stars above, Keith was now trapped amongst them. Just so, unbelievably funny that this planet was more than willing to help him get to where Shiro was, and he just couldn’t let it.

Death was the one place he should have been able to easily follow the man. Yet Shiro still slipped from his grasp, dancing just out of reach, and now with death’s introduction balancing on the edge of an opponent’s sharpened blade, Keith just couldn’t let his captors have this.

This, was his, and no one else’s to take.

 _Shiro would understand_ , he thought as he let his eyes slide shut, focusing on the rise and fall of his chest as he breathed that acrid air.

Outside his cell, he could hear the sound of guards as they paused at his door, probably peering in at him in observation before continuing their path down the hall

The Galra, as he had learned they were called, seemed to be enthralled by him. From what he had gathered from pieces of conversations he’d snatched through the bars of his cell door, the slave master had spent quite a hefty amount of money to snag him for their collection.

It had been something about his exotic look, he’d heard. With his skin untouched by the purple hue that marked the Galra and his stature so much smaller, Keith didn’t look like anyone or anything else they had been accustomed to seeing. He was something shiny and new that they were too ready to destroy if only because they wanted to know what it would look like when they shattered him across the ground.

What they hadn’t counted on though, was the anger that burned in his veins, leaving long lines of rage scorched across his very being that hardened him. It had burned away what was left of the Keith he had been, and drove him forward with the reckless abandon of an animal caged.

If he tried hard enough, he could still hear the sound of the crowd as it had reached a fever pitch. All they saw was a strange creature scrabbling up from where he’d been shoved against the dirt. Something about the bright line of blood hit spit had only made them grow louder as he’d rushed the other prisoner he’d been pitted against.

 _Champion_ , they had called him.

Keith took his life and his title with a single, vicious swipe of his rusting blade across his throat.

Now he carried that name, and the memory of the way his predecessor’s eyes had softened in silent thanks before he’d fallen face first into the puddle of his own strangely colored blood.

Swallowing down the burn of bile that coated the back of his tongue, Keith threw an arm over his eyes as if the added weight of it would do anything to combat the memory.

“— has arrived,” a growling voice bounced off the walls and into his thoughts as the guards made another pass. “I heard the emperor wanted today’s fight to be special because of it.”

Ears perking, he held his breath, not moving for fear the guards would stop speaking if they realized he was awake and listening.

“Something about Champion fighting tonight,” the voice continued, rolling the words around with nonchalance. Keith didn’t miss the way he said the title with a form of dark reverence.

“How is that new from any other fight?” The guard’s companion asked, his own tone boldly inquisitive. It echoed his own questioning thoughts, because as far as Keith knew, it wasn’t different at all. There was a quiet moment filled with the shifting of armor in what he could only assume was the first guard shrugging.

“Throk said it would be an interesting night. That’s all I know.”

Their words began to fade as they pulled away from earshot of his door, any more information about today’s fight lost to the expanse of the hallway. Pulling his arm away from his eyes, Keith let them fall open as he fixed his newly hardened glare on the cracks above him.

 _So they want an interesting night_ , he thought as he swallowed another searing breath. Keith held it within his lungs until he felt the dull burning ache in the middle of his chest. Exhaling slowly, he set his jaw as his eyes burned with the roiling fire trapped in his veins.

 _He could give them that_.

*

Keith’s skin still held onto the burn of the bath water as he stood in the middle of the banquet hall, freshly washed and preened as if he wasn’t about to fight for his life in the dirt. It was all for show, he knew. Before every match, he— along with the other slaves— was dragged to the same polished hall with its walls of marble and its floating chandeliers to be ogled by the Galran aristocracy. There, they would choose the lineup for the fights that night. Each member of the nobility put their money on the fighters that were chosen for the arena, and those same fighters were rewarded with another day and a meal if they survived, while the betting members walked away all the richer.

It was a disgusting show of power that pit captives against each other in hopes that they would be chosen, if only because not being chosen meant another day in the caves and another without food.

Of course, it was different where Keith was concerned.

He did not need to compete against the others to be picked. He was the champion, and he would always find himself as one of the chosen with his chains held by the highest bidder. This very fact was why he never quite understood why they made such a show of displaying him so proudly in the room. The fight for ownership over him was one that took place amongst the nobles. With his hands chained down to the ground beneath him with just enough links to allow him to stand, he didn’t add anything else to the excitement of the hall other than that of a centerpiece carved of flesh and bone.

Warily, he tracked the aristocrats milling around him, watching as their hands clutched tighter around the glass flutes of drink they carried when they caught his eye. Their gazes would always flicker away quickly as they returned to their conversation as if holding his stare too long would turn them to stone.

Catching the eye of one particular Galra, dressed in a suit fashioned to mimic the shine of armor, Keith surged toward him, rattling his chains loudly as he bit down on air like a rabid dog. The man made a small noise in the back of his throat as he quickly turned away and disappeared into the crowd, leaving him with nothing more than a sharp curl that worked its way into the corner of his mouth.

They always made quite the show of being strong, but he knew better.

Like anything else, they feared that which they didn’t understand, and they didn’t understand Keith, or the drive to stay alive that made him so inherently human.

A sudden sharp sound like an amplified bell rang through the hall, silencing the sound of chatter as the nobles turned to look at the entrance. It was the same sound that signaled the end of the choosing, only in came much too early, the majority of the aristocrats having yet had a chance to overlook the rest of the prisoners and make their choice.

Confusion erupted across them as those that had managed to pick unchained their fighters and led them towards the exit.

“That was hardly enough time,” he overheard a woman say as a guard stepped forward to shuffle her along with them.

“What is this about?” A man said as he made his way to Keith, the question asked to no one in particular as he made to grab his chains. His clawed hand never quite made it as a much larger one closed around his wrist and pulled it back.

“It’s time for you to leave,” a deep voice growled, filled with the sharpened edge of authority and threat. Unequivocal rage melted quickly into to fear touched resignation as the galra turned his attention away from Keith and to the general that held him back.

Keith felt the stabbing flare of his own anger as he followed the same line of the Galra’s vision, already knowing who had stepped in to stop him.

“Champion has already been chosen,” Sendak continued, tightening his fist in warning as if the aristocrat might argue the fact. Time stalled as he swallowed down a reply that still burned bright within his glare. Clearing his throat of the burred statement, he jerked his hand away from the general’s grasp.

“Yes, sir,” he said lowly as he stepped back, pulling his feet together and standing taller as he crossed his right arm across his chest. It was a formality, Keith knew. One that looked as forced as it sounded. “Vrepit sa.”

“Now go.” The command was cold as Sendak turned to face Keith, ignoring as the other Galra turned on his heel to go, throwing a quick glance over his shoulder before he disappeared through the wide doors. A soft click followed as they shut behind him, leaving the two alone.

Anger threatened to choke him as Keith ground his teeth around it as he glared up at the general. Even by Galran standards, he was large. With his wide set shoulders and his tall frame, he was made all the more impressive by the oversized metallic prosthetic that replaced his left arm. Towering over him now with a presence filled with might and steel, anyone else might have cowered before him.

“Hello, Champion,” Sendak soothed, looming forward in silent threat as he brought the sharpened claw of his flesh hand up to his face. It was another threat as he felt the pinprick against his cheek. Any harder and he’d surely break skin.

A pit curdled deep in Keith’s stomach at the very thought of Sendak leaving his mark.

“They cleaned you up nicely today,” he stated bluntly, turning his head this way and that as he inspected the way his hair was softly curling around his face. A smile carved itself into Sendak’s features, exposing his fangs as he drew the claw slowly down his skin.

“If the royals had been given the choice, they certainly would have chosen you today.”

Something about the statement rang with the bitter edge of a sharp compliment. One that Keith rejected wholeheartedly.

“They always choose me,” he hissed, head tugging back against Sendak’s hold and leaving burning lines where the general’s nails had run across his skin with the movement. “How would today have been any different?”

Fingers bit further into the meat of his cheeks as the Galra tightened his grip, forcing his mouth slightly open with the sheer force of his grasp. Keith watched carefully as Sendak leant closer, all the while holding his burning glare.

“The difference is that tonight, Champion, the emperor will be very pleased by the sight of you.”

Each word dusted across his face with Sendak’s hot breath, raising the hair at the back of his neck with the hidden meaning buried beneath them. It was enough to set his teeth on edge as he bit his molars into the meat of his cheeks. He was waving the flag of an inside joke in his face, and the mere fact that he wasn’t privy to it had him clenching his fists.

“Are you going to tell me what’s so special about today’s fight?” Keith asked, grinding the words out between his teeth as he threw every ounce of fire into his glare. Anyone else would have burnt beneath it.

Sendak, to his credit, seemed to bask in it, using the light of it to turn his grin into something cruel.

“Was it supposed to be special?” He asked, twisting Keith’s head to the side as he brushed his nose along the lightly scented waves at his ear. The chains that kept his arms trapped down at his sides rattled angrily as he jerked at them in a vain attempt to retaliate. A huff of aborted laughter tickled his skin.

“Why else put in this much effort?” Keith growled, fixing his gaze on a single crack in the hall’s tile. Anything to distract him from the warmth of Sendak’s unwelcome attentions.

“Maybe we just wanted you to look nice for your final night,” he purred as he nosed at the spot just above his ear.

“How sweet of you.” Packing the statement with disinterested drawl, it was enough to elicit a complete laugh from the Galra as he pulled back, finally letting go of Keith’s jaw as he stepped back. Though the sound of it filled the hall around them, it never quite touched the general’s eyes, which remained cold and sharp. They were a perfect foil to to Keith’s.

“Don’t worry, Champion. You’ll see soon enough,” Sendak soothed as he raised his metal arm. For just a brief moment, a curl of fear unfurled itself in his gut as the light caught the unnatural limb. If he felt so inclined, he could crush him with just one grasp of his metallic palm.

And from the way Sendak always eyed him, it seemed he always felt inclined.

With a quick flick of his wrist, he motioned two of the guards from the doorway.

“Take him to the arena,” was all he said, not bothering to look at them as they moved to unhook the chains from the ground. One pulled sharply on the metal links, the movement jarring his shoulder as he was pulled toward the guard. The sharp metallic taste of blood filled his mouth as his teeth bit into his tongue.

“And you,” Sendak said, that bitter light sparking in his eyes once more. “Don’t disappoint. Only I get to kill you, Champion.”

*

Screams and cheers from the arena melted together, the sounds of it filling the space around him as he waited for his turn. Keith was always last, the closer to the whole macabre ordeal. He was used to the order. Used to the cries of pain and twisted pleasure that worked its way through the walls and into his nerves until it filled him with a jumpy kind of electricity.

A small voice at the back of his mind helpfully supplied the term “fight or flight.” 

Something about today felt different though. The arena sounded louder, almost as if the crowd had been amplified. Their cheers came more frequently, and their chants more obscene as they urged opponents to gut the slaves that had been picked to fight. Bouncing his knee, Keith tried to pick apart the sounds to pinpoint the difference in hopes to solve the mystery of why this fight was so special.

Maybe they thought this would be the night that they would best him.

Keith’s knuckles turned white as he clenched his hands together in his lap.

 _I’d love to see them try_.

“Ready?” A guard asked gruffly, grabbing his arm and roughly snapping him off the bench he’d been sitting on before he could answer.

Not that he needed to.

Crossing over the threshold onto the red dirt of the arena, the lights of the coliseum stood in stark contrast to the darkened holding hall, blinding him momentarily with their brilliance. The crowd erupted with the sharp sound of their cries. Chants and jeers mixed in the most noxious way as his vision returned just in time for him to see the guards dragging the discarded body of the previous fighter across the dirt. He didn’t miss the way members of the crowd lent over to spit on the body from the stands as it went by.

“Don’t disappoint,” the guard echoed Sendak’s words as he held his thumb to Keith’s cuffs, quickly unlocking them before he shoved him forward. Stumbling with the force of it, he managed to keep himself upright as the man tossed a sword onto the ground at his feet.

 _Champion, Champion, Champion_ , the voices came as he stared down at the strange metal of the blade.

The light glinted off its edges in the most tantalizing way as he dropped onto his haunches, his fingers curling over the grip as he picked it up. It was the nicest sword he’d been given yet in the arena, and was lightyears away from the rusted thing they’d originally supplied him the first time. One part of him wanted to chalk it up to being nothing more than a reward for his victories, but the much louder part of him told him it meant something more.

An inhuman sound tore through the air, silencing the crowd and Keith’s thoughts as his opponent was led through the dark opening at the other end of the arena.

Pushing up onto his feet, he spun the blade quickly at his side, loosening his wrist and testing its weight as he eyed the beast that stood opposite of him now. It was a fearsome looking thing, standing twice his size and three times his width. Murky grey skin was pulled across its bones and sharp tusks poked between its lips as it leered at him with it’s black eyes. Only a single dot of white punctuated the inky orbs and bore into Keith’s very existence as the creature breathed.

His own eyes followed the line of its long arms, tracking the deep divots and raised scarring that marked its skin all the way down to the bone-like scythes that protruded where its hands should have been.

Throwing its hairless head back, it cracked its tusked jaws wide and unleashed a screech filled with darkness and torn metal.

The crowd answered with their own high pitched scream filled with desire. The desire for blood.

It was enough to urge the beast forward, its eyes widening as it charged toward Keith with single minded purpose as it raised its arms, already prepared to make a strike. Much like his other fights, there was no pomp and circumstance, only the sudden start to a fight to the death.

Normally, he welcomed the lack of preface. There wasn’t any ceremony or false pretense as to what exactly this was. However, even this seemed to come on too quickly. He needed a moment to survey the crowd and find the emperor.

Maybe then he could have found what exactly it was that suddenly had his heart beating triple time under the hard press of a watchful gaze that was boring straight down to his core.

Without much time to react, Keith threw himself to the side, tucking into his chest and rolling over his shoulder as a scythe arced into the space that he’d just been standing. The force of it pushed through the air, scattering dust beneath his feet and cooling his skin as he leapt back to his feet with his sword raised.

From what he could see, there weren’t any weak points in the thick hide of its skin. Even the scars it wore looked as if they’d added another layer of protection to its chorded body. The only point that looked as if it would serve for a quick death, was those dark, soulless eyes.

Stumbling clumsily over its feet as its strike met nothing but air, the beast also proved to be quite graceless, which would serve as Keith’s greatest advantage. It was quick to move forward, but not so quick to turn.

Quickly switching his hold on the hilt so he held it much like a dagger, Keith ran forward with his own cry, falling to his knees and skidding across the dirt as he raised the sword out. The momentum of his slide and the beast’s turn pushed the blade across the back of its knee, causing it to buckle slightly as it scraped opened its flesh. Black began to slide from the wound as it rolled down the creature’s knee and stained the red dirt beneath it until it was damp and dark.

_Champion, Champion, Champion._

It was a far cry from a mortal wound, but it stalled the beast long enough for Keith to turn his attention to the crowd. Stretched around them was an endless sea of Galra, all watching him with bright eyed intent as he scanned over them. Dragging the purple of his gaze over the stands, he turned his look to the raised dais where Zarkon would be seated. Dark fabrics cascaded around the square area, draping regality along its exposed edges and separating the highborn from the commoners. At the very front, standing like sullen soldiers were the nobles that had managed to choose fighters.

And behind them—

Pain exploded across his shoulder as one of the beast’s curved blades sank into the meat of it, sending a smattering of crimson across the already garish dirt. With a sudden jerk, it used the bite of its scythe to pull Keith back and throw him onto the hardened ground. Head bouncing off the earth, stars rocked across his vision as he bit down on a pained whimper, snapping the sound in two.

There was a shuddering gasp that echoed through the crowd as he tried to blink the bright spots and dirt from his eyes.

 _“_ No,” he growled as he tightened his grip on the hilt of his blade. Its shadow fell over him as it stepped closer, dragging the tips of its scythes along the ground as it stared down at him.

“You don’t win.” The words were a mantra, spoken to low for the beast to hear, not that it would have understood anyway. But they were meant for it. Meant for the crowd that was now cheering loudly for the creature that they thought would finally defeat the Champion.

Most importantly, it was meant for the emperor with his glare that he could feel cutting lines into his back.

“You don’t win,” he said again, each sound burning his dried throat as the beast continued to stare down at him, reveling in the sight of his body prone and splayed in the dirt.

That, was its mistake.

“You don’t win!” Pushing upward in one explosive motion and ignoring the way his head spun with the sudden change, Keith leapt up towards the beast, slicing the sword through the air and landing it directly in the meat of its eye.

Warmth speckled across the bridge of his nose as inky blood sprayed from wound, covering both him and his blade in dark liquid as the crowd fell silent. Ripping the sword back from its head, Keith took two unsteady steps back as the creature swayed momentarily before it fell face first to the ground with an inelegant thud.

His own hot blood poured down his arm and over his fingers, mingling with the beast’s on his blade as he stood starting down at his opponent. Chest heaving with exertion, Keith pulled the acidic air between his teeth as the silence of the arena closed in upon him.

Then, it dissipated into a cacophony of mixed sound as the crowd erupted.

_Champion, Champion, Champion._

Bitter bile coated the back of his tongue as his head spun, the queasiness of it turning his stomach. Swallowing it down, he steadied himself and turned back towards the dais that oversaw where he stood.

Drops of crimson fell from his arm and spotted the dirt.

Setting his expression to something a bit more stormy, Keith raised the onyx stained blade, ignoring the flare of pain that erupted around the wound that was dug deep into his shoulder. Normally, after a fight he would kneel. Not in respect, but to bide his time. Any show of defiance would most likely mean his death. The Galra were interested in him, but they were a ruthless people that believed in subordination. Disrespect would earn punishment, and as nothing more than the entertainment that was meant to die anyway, he would certainly be punished with as much.

 _I heard the emperor wanted today’s fight to be special_.

If Zarkon wanted it to be special, he would make it special. Exhaling slowly, he lifted his gaze from the blood stained earth beneath his feet following the line of his sword until they fixed on the man presiding over the arena. Keith felt the prickle of his burning stare as he held his ground, his knuckles turning white as he clenched the hilt tighter.

Time stalled as he held his chin high, holding the glare with his own as he set his jaw into a hard line and waited. What he was waiting for, he wasn’t entirely sure, but he knew that if there was anytime for him to make any sort of blow to the emperor, now was the time. His insubordination alone wouldn’t have done much, but his insubordination in front of an esteemed guest was another story entirely.

It would only land a minor hit to Zarkon’s armor, but it would be more than what he’d normally manage alone. With any luck, it would bruise his ego enough for him to remember the way Keith was staring up at him now.

Another beat past before the emperor shifted his glance away, eyes cutting to his right, leading Keith’s gaze away from him and to the man sitting beside him.

In a single instant, his own attack was turned on him as his throat seized up. Acid filled his lungs as he took in the man seated to Zarkon’s right. He looked different, yet entirely the same. His bangs were pushed back, leaving a white streak against the inky black of the rest of his hair. Across the bridge of his nose was a pinked scar just inches below his steely eyes. The only show of emotion that showed on his face was the sudden arch of one of his brows as he stared down his nose at Keith.

But it was impossible.

The long lost feeling of cotton and acid bloomed in his chest, quickly filling the hole that had been left in the wake of Shiro’s death until his lungs could no longer expand. Everything burned with his lack of oxygen as his mouth opened and closed wordlessly.

 _No_ , Keith thought as he traced the lines of the other man’s face.  _He’s dead_.

He wasn’t certain of much in his life anymore, but he was certain of that fact.

Shiro’s life had ended, up amongst the stars that he had dedicated it to. It had been dashed across the surface of a moon that could offer them nothing more than rocks and ice. Keith had seen the evidence for himself, etched across the crust like a memorial.

_Shiro is dead._

So why was he sitting beside the Galran emperor?

Keith’s lungs screamed out in search of oxygen as he tried to make sense of the swirling thoughts threatening to crush him beneath their weight. His chest burned with it as he held that silver gaze he’d thought he’d lost forever, the hope that they brought him almost more painful than the cut slowly oozing blood down his arm.

“How,” he finally managed, the word so low there was no way for Shiro to have heard it from where he sat, and yet it still managed to break the spell that had held them. With a quick turn of his head, he severed the connected as he looked towards Zarkon, his mouth moving quickly as he said something for his ears only. The dry air had never felt so refreshing as it scraped its way into his lungs.

“Shiro,” he gasped around his breaths, the name itself causing his pulse to race as he took a shuddering step forward. Keith watched as Shiro turned his attention back to him, his expression flat aside from the small tick at the corner of his mouth. It was a small thing, but Keith knew it well. It was the same look he always got when he was trying to keep his emotions in check.

Another step.

“Shiro,” he said again, louder this time as he regained his bearings.

Another step.

“Shiro!”

His heart stirred again as Shiro shifted in his seat. It was another, barely perceptible move but he caught it as he opened his mouth to say something else. Anything else.

 _You died_.

The accusation hung on the tip of his tongue as pain exploded against his skull where one of the guards had rammed the butt of his blaster into the back of his head. Everything around Keith tilted as he tried to cling to the vision of Shiro staring at him from beside Zarkon.

“Shiro.”

His name was the last thing he managed before he was plunged head first into the inky darkness of unconsciousness.


	5. IV

**IV.**

The air was hot and sharp, something like the gas of a zuur plant that dried the inside of his chest and sent a spider web of cracks stretching out across his hollowed lungs.

Once upon a time, he had thought that one day the vacant opening in his chest would fill once more, leaving him a fully realized being once more. Had thought that eventually, the space where his heart had once beat with unrelenting strength would fill with at least some semblance of a pulse.

Turns out that had been nothing more than a trivial dream, the truth of his circumstance always standing as a blatant reminder with each burning breath he took.

It was only part of the reason why he hated visiting Daibazaal.

The other part, was the sheer weight of the truce between the Galran home planet and Altea that threatened to crush him.

Takashi Shirogane had never had much love for the Galra. After all he had learned in his classes of the constant bloodshed that stained his own planet’s history and theirs, and the war he’d watched play out before his eyes and take his parents, it had always been something of a sore subject. Even after his grandfather, the former king, had managed to bridge the gap in their ideals that left them with their glass like armistice, he’d always held onto the weary edge that left his nerves sharpened to knife points with their new allies.

They’d always carved at him, each sharp cut leaving wide open lines that mired all of the Galran emperor’s motives in something dark. Something that he couldn’t trust.

Each flayed wound had only been soothed by the warmth of a violet fire gaze and a cunning smile that promised him everything would be okay.

_I’ll always have your back, Shiro, you know that. We’ll win this thing if that’s what it comes down to._

_You’ll always have me._

That lie had cut deeper than his unnerving suspicions ever had, and now he was missing his the most vital part of him, and from his kingly throne, he saw and felt the bite of each individual blade that marked his flesh. Zarkon was up to something. That much he knew with certainty.

No matter how long the peace had lasted, and no matter the condolences he had extended as Shiro knelt before the funeral pyres of those he held dear, he could still see something insidious coiling behind the glowing gold of his eyes.

 _You need more than that_ , His voice whispered in his ear as Shiro ran his metallic fingers through his hair, pulling the white of his bangs back from his face. Muted grey stared back at him as he assessed his appearance in the mirror, his once bright gaze made dull by loss and accented by the dark shadows that had bled out beneath his eyes. Something about the way they they melted across his skin made the dark pink of his scar stand out further, making it look more ugly and twisted where it ran over the bridge of his nose.

Loss wasn’t anything new to Shiro. He’d lost his parents. He’d lost his grandfather. He’d seen countless Alteans lose their lives in war. Death had almost become a constant companion, its surety almost a comfort because he knew that one day, he would see all those faces again.

Yet it had never occurred to him that it could still surprise him until it jumped up behind him and seized him by the throat, forcing him to see the true ugliness of what it was in the form of the limp and broken body of the best of him.

 _I’m so sorry, your majesty_ , his royal advisor, Coran had said, his eyes turned wet and voice watery as he fought to hold Shiro’s gaze.  _It seems there’s been an accident_.

Swallowing down the lump in his throat, Shiro held his steady stare in the reflective surface of the mirror, almost daring himself to show some sign of emotion.

As if he hadn’t already exhausted all his emotions long ago.

He had been running a standard visit with one of the neighboring kingdoms. It should have been nothing more than a couple quintants to ensure they’d received the relief supplies Altea had sent.

 _I’ll be back in no time, and you won’t even have time to miss me_ , He had said, the words thrown over his shoulder and accompanied by that sharp smile that worked its way between Shiro’s ribs. Those words wound like a noose around his throat as he’d demanded to see Him, choking him of all his air until Coran had led him somberly to the room where He lay.

He had looked so serene there, his eyes shut and mouth slightly parted as if in sleep. How many times had Shiro seen that exact expression as he’d woken up?

How many times had he admired the slight tan of his skin that rode the arch of his high cheekbones, and the contrast of his red markings that he wore so well?

How many times had he pushed his hair away from his face, just as he did then?

Only all those other times, it earned him a subtle stirring as the soft touch woke Him up, a liquid smile pouring across his mouth as he’d lazily open his eyes to mouth a quiet good morning to him.

In a vain attempt to best death, he’d brushed those onyx waves away from His face over and over in hopes that he would gain the same result, only to be met by the unnerving stillness of the truth.

That day, Shiro’s life had ended, leaving him a hollow imitation of himself. The leader that stood before his people and continued to push forward through the political dealings that encompassed being a king was nothing more than a placeholder for the man he had once been.

Without His fire, Shiro was nothing more than an unlit pyre.

“Keith,” he breathed, eyes fixated on his reflection as he fisted his hands at his sides, relishing in the electric shock that tore through his chest with just the simple saying of his name.

“Keith,” he tried again, savoring the taste of it as it coated his tongue with the bitterness of ash as he held his own stare. Grinding his teeth together, he pulled a stuttering breath through his nose as the muscle in his jaw jumped. Blood rushed through his ears as he felt his nails cut into the palm of his hand as he focused on the different points of pain that ached within him, if only to feel the thrill of it for a moment longer.

“Keith,” Shiro ground out between his teeth, the searing pain of it working its way up his throat in the form of a choking sob. Everything ached as he longed for nothing more than the chance to touch him once more. He felt the stubborn bite of his want as it pressed into his chest and attempted to break apart his sternum. It was always there, lying in wait beneath his skin until it was called up, its bite the only thing reminding Shiro that he was still alive.

Even if all that he loved was not, he was still there.

Moments passed as he savored the burning lines that crept slowly through him as his fingers twitched with it before the ebb started to fade away.

 _Not yet,_  he thought angrily as his eyes flashed in the bright surface. Chasing the feeling, Shiro threw his hand forward into the mirror. Cracks spiderwebbed across his reflection, breaking it into hundreds of pieces that stretched across its shining surface.

Crimson stained the epicenter of the break and painted his angry stare fierce with gore.

Staring back at him, he saw all of his demons writhing within the fires of his rage.

“Sir.”

Coran’s voice drew a strong line in his shoulders as he pulled his injured hand into his side, ignoring the warm liquid that spread across his knuckles. Slipping carefully back into his vacant mask, Shiro turned to face his advisor.

Standing in the doorway with his hands held carefully behind his back, the Altean looked almost as tired as Shiro did. Even with the bright orange of his hair catching the light of the room, he looked deflated and dull, his eyes wary as they flicked quickly between his king and the broken mirror behind him.

“We’re guests, Shiro. We can’t go breaking things,” he said carefully, voice lilting between teasing and concerned as he offered him a smile. It was meant to reassure, Shiro was sure, but it never quite touched his eyes.

He’d often had to remind himself that where he’d just lost Keith, Coran had lost both a friend and his king. As Shiro had silently fallen apart, he had brought it upon himself to pick up each piece and carefully hold onto it in hopes of one day being able to try and put them back together.

It gave him some solace knowing that he wasn’t the only person ached with the emptiness Keith’s death had left, no matter how selfish that may have been.

“Something tells me Zarkon can afford to replace a mirror,” Shiro replied with a humorless laugh as he stepped away from the broken glass and closer to Coran. He didn’t miss the way his gaze flicked down to his hand.

“What is it?” He continued as Coran opened his mouth to speak, cutting off the question that he knew was poised on the edge of his tongue.

_Are you okay?_

Shiro knew he meant well, but he didn’t feel like lying, knowing he’d had to put enough effort into those later. Hesitation pulled the corner’s of Coran’s mouth down slightly as he searched Shiro’s face, brows twitching in together for just a moment before they smoothed out once more in silent resignation.

“It’s time to join the emperor,” he said lowly, his own disdain coloring his words with something dark. Coran was ever loyal to Altea, and had been loyal to the Shirogane family his whole life. When the truce was drawn between the Galran empire and the Alteans, he had supported it fully, but he’d also held onto his own doubts about the Galra and their ability to uphold their end of the alliance.

 _Bloodlust doesn’t just go away_ , he’d once said, eyes distant before snapping back to himself with a sheepish look.

Shiro agreed wholeheartedly.

Even now, nearly 10 deca-phoebes into the alliance, he still couldn’t step foot in the halls of Zarkon’s castle without feeling like he was constantly playing straight into his hands.

“I’ll come shortly,” Shiro said slowly, tempering the words carefully as he spoke, taking care to not let the flickering edge of pain melt into his voice as a slow burning ache began to spread slowly across the skin of his knuckles. It matched wonderfully with the gaping hole that was ever present in his chest, but it still was not something he wished to share.

This pain was his, and his alone to feel.

Purple gaze turning down once more towards his clenched hand, Coran just nodded as he turned his back to him.

“I’ll wait outside,” he said, not bothering to turn his words over his shoulder as he walked out of the room. “We’ll walk to the arena together.”

Silence settled out across the room as the door clicked behind Coran, leaving Shiro alone once more with his thoughts. Letting a loud hiss of breath through his teeth, he fell down into a crouch as he pulled his hand up to his face to inspect the broken lines of skin that still oozed liquid garnet. The cuts were shallow as they weaved over his knuckles, pulling further apart as he tightened his fist and watched the blood flow freely down the back of his hand.

Pain throbbed through his hand in pulses of pressing heat as he anchored himself to a single drop that was dragging a crooked line along his skin.

“Keith,” he sighed as he screwed traced the line back and forth over the back of his hand as if it were a map that might guide him to some form of peace.

He knew it wouldn’t, but it soothed the ache somewhat as he screwed his eyes shut and let his head fall back.

Biting into the meat of his bottom lip, he ignored the moisture that rolled across his skin and down towards his hairline.

_Takashi. You’ll always have me._

If only that had been true.

*

The arena was a masterpiece in its own right, that much Shiro could admit, even if he didn’t share the same love for the events that took place within it. Erected shortly after the truce with the help of Altean architects to form a symbol of their newly founded alliance, it held small influences of his home within the careful curves of its archways and expansive view of the open sky beneath the glittering dome that separated them from it.

It contrasted with the harsh sharp lines of the Galran symbols and dark color scheme in a way that felt like a perfect metaphor to their allegiance.

It was a metal and stone caricature of their opposing forces working together in artificial unity.

Biting down on a sigh, Shiro pushed himself further into the high backing of the smaller throne that he sat in, his skin prickling beneath the bandage he’d wrapped tightly around his knuckles and the weighted stare he could feel from the Galran emperor. His throat ached with the dryness of the air as he breathed in an attempt to focus on something else aside from the presence beside him.

Zarkon was a formidable leader, one that had led his people with an iron rule that left no room for anything but subordination. His hands were painted with almost as much of his own peoples blood as it was that of his foes. Any and all who had opposed him were met with the swift justice of a blade.

With the treaty he had entered into with Shiro’s grandfather, he had agreed to cease his attack on others, but there was nothing to be done about what he could do with those under his rule.

It left a sour taste in Shiro’s mouth as he recalled Coran’s words once more.

_Bloodlust doesn’t just go away._

Something within him coiled in on itself as an ominous darkness pressed at the edges of his thoughts. There was an answer there that he couldn’t quite grasp, the oppressive feeling of ill omen weighing down on him further as it danced just out of his grasp once more.

It was the very same feeling that clung to the air before a tempest that promised nothing but ruin.

“This is your first time at our arena, is it not?” Zarkon’s voice was a low timbre as he spoke for the first time since their introductions. He tried to speak candidly, leaving the statement to sound offhanded as if speaking with an old pal. The blanket of familiarity did nothing to assuage the sparking sharpness that lurked beneath it.

After all, a tamed viper was still just as venomous.

“Yes,” Shiro answered shortly, keeping his eyes trained on the slave below as they tried to dodge the curving swing of their opponent’s axe.

The bright sheen of of their blood sluiced across the dirt as they failed.

“Our visits just never seemed to line up with any fights.”

Or rather, Zarkon had never insisted that they come when fights were taking place, and Shiro had never pressed to try. Death was not meant to be an entertainment for others, and the Galran had never been friends. There had never been a reason for either of them to push for a meeting such as this one.

The darkness fanned out in slithering tendrils, sneaking the bitter truth closer to the forefront of his mind before snatching it back quickly once more. A single drop of unease rolled down his spine, tracing each vertebrae as it sent goosebumps racing out over his skin.

Something was wrong. He could feel it.

 _You need more than that,_ Keith’s voice repeated in his head and his finally pulled his gaze from the macabre display before him to look up at Zarkon. A sharp curving of his lips twisted his expression into that of something wicked. It was nothing but ice and carving blades as he appraised Shiro, burning him within the malign fire of his stare.

Then, as quickly as Shiro had caught it, it vanished, leaving nothing but an easy arc of his brow in its place.

“Well I’m glad it finally worked out for you to join us, your majesty,” he replied. The title curled in his mouth as it was touched by the electric jolt of goading. Shiro regarded the emperor closely, vaguely aware of the guards dragging the slain gladiator’s body away to set for the next fight.

“Something tells me I have you to thank for that, your majesty.” Finally speaking, he nodded his head in feigned respect as he threw weight into the honorific. That same bitter light sparked deep in Zarkon’s glowing eyes before they flicked back towards the ring.

“You are in for quite a treat this evening,” he said instead as he tilted his chin to the dirt below them. His growl made Shiro’s stomach knot as he continued to speak.

“Our Champion will be fighting just for you tonight.”

The crowd’s screams punctuated his statement as it reached a fever pitch, its very sound edging Zarkon closer to that twisted smile once more as it signaled the entrance of the Galran Champion. Pulling his gaze back towards the point of the arena’s attention.

Time stopped in a single suspended moment of brutal clarity as his gaze found the gladiator. All this time he had imagined the purple hue that would stain the fighter’s skin as he would stand tall and proud, his shoulders wide with the set of a warrior’s width and the build of a typical Galran fighter.

Maybe, Shiro had considered, he had been caught turning his back on his ruler’s beliefs and was thrown into the ring as compensation for the treachery his planet would have seen his individual thinking as.

This mindset hadn’t prepared him for the slightly tanned skin that he could stretched across the gladiator’s hands and face, or the small stature that left him light and lithe as he moved to grab the shining blade the guards had thrown before him in the dirt. It hadn’t prepared him for the dark waves that fell around his face, pillowing the sharp lines of his face against the onyx as he stared out at the beast that was led in to try and end his life.

That mindset, had not prepared him to see Keith standing there in the crimson dirt, blade in hand as the creature launched itself toward him, turning all of Shiro’s thoughts to ash on his tongue.

 _But it was impossible_.

Air seized in his lungs, trapping itself in his chest and throat as he choked on the suddenness of the world as it shattered around him in the very same way the mirror had earlier beneath his own fist.

 _No_ , Shiro thought as he traced the lines of the other man’s face.  _He’s dead_.

It was a bitter fact that he knew to be certain. He had lit the flames of Keith’s funeral pyre himself, and he’d stood guard until the last of that fire had burnt itself out and left nothing but ash behind.

Keith’s life had ended, the unfortunate circumstance of an accident that had torn everything he’d ever loved from within his own grasp and left him raw and bleeding until he had nothing left.

 _Keith is dead_.

So why was he here, a gladiator fighting for Zarkon’s entertainment?

“Are you alright, your majesty?” The emperor’s voice was filled with frozen blades as it cut through flesh and bone and cleaved straight down to Shiro’s heart. A sharp acidic sting unfurled across his lungs as they screamed for the air that had caught in his throat and choked him. In that moment, the months of pain that had haunted him as he chased the ghost of Keith’s mauve stare crashed down onto his shoulders and threatened to break him beneath its weight.

Burrs grasped at the back of his ribs as he watched Keith look up towards where they sat, his gaze searching before he was lurched back by the beast and its curving claws.

From this far he couldn’t hear the sound that erupted from Keith’s mouth, but he could still feel it as it sent a shock twisting low in his gut.

 _Keith_.

“I’m fine,” Shiro managed, those two words clawing themselves from between his teeth as he held onto the broken pieces of himself that threatened to fall away. None of this made sense. He was  _dead_.

_Why was he here?_

Racing thoughts and his own bitter confusion mired his thoughts in something bleak before he found himself doused in the cold reality of his situation. He didn’t know what was going on, but he couldn’t show so much. It was a weakness that would leave him open to whatever Zarkon’s plan were, and would certainly mark an end.

Though, the end of their truce, or a life, Shiro wasn’t certain.

Pain cracked across his knuckles once more as he clenched a fist, busting the already torn skin further as blood began to seep through the stark white bandaging.

“I’ve just never seen anything like this before,”  he added, ignoring the harshness of his own voice as he kept his eyes trained on the gladiator.

Laying in the dirt, Shiro watched Keith closely as he stared up at his opponent, unmoving as his hand sat atop his blade’s hilt. The only movement before them was that of the beast as it slowly moved towards him.

 _Get up_ , he wanted to cry as he founding himself leaning forward in his seat.

 _You have to get up_.

Then he did. Pushing himself up off the ground as his mouth formed around words Shiro couldn’t make out, Keith thrust his blade through the beast’s eye. Black arced across his face, leaving a wet line painted along his cheek and partially over his nose as he stepped back and let his opponent crumple.

Silence coated the arena as Shiro kept his gaze fixed on the heaving line of Keith’s shoulders. Even from so far, he could see the ferocity of the firestorm that was trapped within his skin trying to get out.

Keith was beautiful, and he’d always been such, but standing there before him now Shiro found himself hit again with the intensity of everything that he was. He was every storm and every star made of flesh and bone. No one who ever stood against him had stood a chance, and Shiro even less so.

Their lives had been tied together from the beginning, both of their hearts being born from the same star.

And now, he ached with it. Ached with the very need to reach out to him. To touch. To confirm the very life that thrummed through his veins.

Shiro watched closely as Keith slowly turned his attention back towards where he and Zarkon sat, his expression dark as he slowly raised the stained blade up to them in a defiant salute. For just a moment, he saw the small tick at the center of his brows that he knew meant he was trying to swallow down pain.

The crowd erupted into a deafening pitch of cheers as he stood there nearly glowing in his victory as his mouth pulled down in a challenging scowl. It was just a brief moment that stretched for a small eternity before Shiro saw the exact moment his stare rolled slowly from Zarkon, and over to him.

Something a lot like recognition flickered across Keith’s face as his mouth fell into a small gasp of shock.

“Are you certain you’re feeling well? You look ill,” Zarkon mused as dark humor settling itself into the spaces of his words as the stinging jabs of taunting landed their hits.

“I said I’m fine,” Shiro snapped harshly as he turned to face the emperor before realizing his mistake. The emperor looked him over slowly in something closer to bemusement than anger as he bit into his cheek, focusing on the pain.

“I’m fine,” he tried again, softer this time as he turned back towards the open arena.

Keith’s mouth moved around a silent word, the sound of it lost to the distance that stood between them but he knew it well. He knew the exact shape of his name in Keith’s mouth. Even without being able to hear it, he knew exactly how it would sound.

Exactly how the rough of Keith’s voice would soften over the syllables in the way it only did for him.

 _Shiro_.

A thrill rolled through his chest as he watched Keith take a step forward as he repeated his name. Hand curling around the the arm of his seat, he dug his nails into the wood as he tried to hold himself back.

Keith’s lips wrapped around his name once more.  

 _You died_.

The thought flit across his mind as he swallowed the bile that burnt the back of his tongue. He was right there, but there was nothing he could do except watch from where he sat. Biting his tongue, Shiro watched as a guard came up behind Keith. Completely unaware of the Galra behind him, Shiro swallowed down the warning that jumped into his throat as the guard bashed the butt of his gun into the back of Keith’s head.

For just a moment, he stood there still as he stared up at Shiro before his body crumpled into the dirt.

“Isn’t he magnificent?” Zarkon prodded, voice a shade away from knowing as Shiro snapped his head toward him, his mouth half formed into a snarl before he caught himself. Easing the tension from his expression until it lay near vacant, he gave a curt nod of affirmation.

“He is quite the fighter,” was all he supplied as he timed his breaths into something more normal. Holding the emperor’s gaze now, he could feel the silent struggle that stood between them.

 _He knows_.

The realization hit him full force as he turned his stare away and back to the guards as they hauled Keith off the ground. Pulling his unmoving body across the dirt, they didn’t seem to pay any mind to the fact that they held something that was precious.

Something that was  _his_.

_He knows._

“Come, your majesty,” Zarkon spoke again as he stood from his throne. The threat that lay deep beneath his words were barely veiled as he turned to leave.

“Let us continue our talks over dinner.”

Carefully rising, Shiro paused only long enough as he watched the guards disappear into the shadows of the tunnel, the line that was dragged behind them by Keith’s limp form was all that was left as proof that he was there.

That, and the dark pool of blood that had turned the red dirt onyx where his opponent had been slain.

 _You died_ , he thought once more as his vision swam with sudden tears that he quickly tried to blink away.

Shiro wasn’t sure how it was possible, but he was certain of one thing.

He would Keith out of there, no matter the cost. His life was worth all of it.

With one last steadying breath, Shiro pulled his stare away from the gore that lay below and turned to follow Zarkon.

“Yes,” he said lowly, his silver stare carving marks into the emperor’s back. “Let’s.”

*

Keith’s skin burned as he twisted against the hard pallet of his cell. Sweat gathered at his temples and soaked his hair, sticking it to his forehead and the back of his neck as he tried to swallow down a whimper of pain as another rolling ache spread out from the wound on his shoulder.

It had been stupid to give his opponent the opening, that much he knew. If the rolls had been reversed, he also would have gladly taken it. The only difference was, he wouldn’t have wasted it to make a show of tossing the beast to the ground. Not that it mattered now.

His opponent was already dead, discarded along with the rest of the corpses from the arena with the only reminder of his existence ripped several inches into the meat of Keith’s shoulder and oozing lazily through his veins.

 _It’s what you deserve_ , one of the guards had hissed when he’d come to long enough to see the hall of his cell stretched before him and not the one to the med bay. When he’d awakened fully some time later, he only looked down long enough to see that they’d done enough to staunch the bleeding, but had left it a gaping slice that exposed muscle and ran down to the bone.

What had he expected?

There had been a gamble in showing his defiance, and now he was paying up for his losses. Another slow moving blast of searing pain raced out across his shoulder and into his chest as he ground his teeth. Keith knew enough about venoms and poisons to know that the coursing heat was much more than just a side effect of the pain, but was something more sinister that burnt in his bloodstream, all too ready to stop his heart.

A vision of stormy eyes clouded his vision as his breath rasped over his dried and cracked lips. He’d won that much at least. One final glimpse of a ghost.

“Shiro,” Keith breathed out into the emptiness of his cell as his vision twisted and faded at the edges. Each one of his breaths felt heavier and drier as he continued to pull air into his lungs, the motion nothing more than robotic as he let his mind wander back to the man in the arena.

He had looked so much like him.

Maybe that’s how he should have known that he had come to his end.

Maybe that had been Shiro coming to usher him home.

Darkness melted the edges of his sight as the cell started to fall away, leaving him suspended in murky shadows and burning heat.

“Shiro.”

His name was a prayer that Keith held onto as he heard the loud sound of a shouting off in the distance. It sounded so far as his fingers twitched at his side in reflex to the sound.

Air twisted between his lips as he exhaled slowly before he took a slow rattling inhale.

_Shiro._

Another loud sound rumbled as Keith felt the hush of heated air against his skin. Somewhere, he heard someone yell his name.

No. He heard Shiro yell his name.

 _Shiro_ , his fingers twitched again as his vision twisted.  _I’m coming_.

“Keith!”

Silvered eyes were the last point of light that he saw as a soft touch against his cheek lulled him deep into the shadows.

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me: I'm gonna post once a month!  
> Also me: Immediately fails and misses a month.
> 
> For real this time though, once a month XD


	6. V.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: This chapter wasn't planned, but I saw my opportunity for some angst so I took it and in the process I made myself sad. Brb, crying over every Keith and every Shiro in this story.
> 
> Also, txakur means dog in basque. ~~do i look up words in different languages so i can use them for altean words when i cant find canon altean words? yes. yes i do.~~

**V.**

 

 **Before.  
** The marble halls of the kingdom were almost suffocating, even in their large expanse that dwarfed Takashi Shirogane’s small, six-year-old frame. It was easy to get lost in those halls that twisted and turned like a maze. Often times he could find himself making his way through the winding marble for hours without finding his way back to his starting point.

Of course, it wasn’t like Shiro had anything else better to do than get lost anyway.

There were very few children in the palace, almost all were younger than he was and more interested in childish babble and drawing than playing knights with the future king. Not that he supposed it even mattered that much if they did want to. Even if any of the other kids did show interest in playing with him, their parents would quickly step in, whispering quick words about how they couldn’t possibly play with the young prince.

So, Shiro wandered.

There wasn’t a corner of the palace that he hadn’t explored, turning each stretch of marbled hall into an adventure that he had to conquer. Once upon a time, it had brought him some kind of joy, but now, as he retraced the steps he’d followed just hours before, Shiro felt like he might be crushed under the weight of his boredom.

Were princes even supposed to be this bored?

Yawning loudly, the sound of it echoing off the high vaulted ceilings, he reached his arms above his head in a stretch as he continued across the polished tile and towards the large wooden doors that would lead outside. It wouldn’t be much better out there, and he knew it. At best he’d be able to watch his father train yet again.

And at worst, he’d find a tree to fall asleep under until it was time for dinner.

Then more sleep.

And then he’d do it all over again.

“I really am going to die of boredom,” he said lowly as he placed his hands on the smoothed oak door, pressing his weight into the grain as it heaved open before him.

Shiro’s biggest problem, was that he was curious.

Curious about the kingdom he would one day rule.

Curious about the things his parents and his grandfather spoke about in hushed tones over dinner.

Curious about the books that lined the long walls of the royal library.

Most of all, he was curious about the wide open sky.

Up there, he saw nothing but wonder stretched out in an endless expanse of soft, feathery clouds; twisting, sparkling nebulas; and the ever bright sun that gave Altea all its power. One day, he swore, he would be up there. He would travel all through that open space and find everything he could ever want within the swirling pinks and purples of the sunset when day met night.

But for now, he had to wait, for he was nothing more than a child stuck in his gilded marble cage.

Though, once he was old enough he’d be nothing more than an adult stuck in the very same way.

It never stopped him from dreaming though, if only to escape the boredom for a little while.

Rolling his shoulders back and puffing his small chest out, he tried to emulate his father’s steady stride as he walked along the breezeway, keeping his eyes focused ahead instead of on the empty courtyard beside him.

 _Keep your head high when you walk around, Takashi_ , his grandfather had reprimanded him once after catching him skulking the halls alone.  _You never know who is watching, and we are proud Shiroganes_.

With his focus solely on each carefully placed step, he almost missed the  _thwack!_  of wood on wood timed with one of his footfalls.

Almost.

Stopping suddenly, Shiro snapped his attention toward the courtyard, certain it should have been emptied at this time. The knights would be out for their noontime rounds, and he knew his father preferred to train out near the stables. Anyone interested in training was elsewhere, and yet he knew that distinct sound of a practice sword against the sturdy tree trunk that provided shade to the yard.

It was a sound he knew well, if only because more often than not, he was the one making it.

Searching across the soft grass that covered the area, his silvered gaze found the source of the sound easily.

Standing with his back to him, was a boy.

Dressed in dark clothes, with darker hair that curled and waved around his head, he moved quickly and cleanly, landing hit after hit in nearly the exact same point on the tree’s bark. Shiro watched closely as the boy paused, his shoulders heaving upwards with an exaggerated breath before he swung once more. He wasn’t quite sure what it was, whether it was the fact that he looked to be about his age, or whether it had something to do with the intensity in which he filled each perfectly aimed blow, but Shiro couldn’t look away.

It wasn’t until his lungs started to burn and scream for air that he’d realized he’d stopped breathing altogether as he’d watched.

The breath he pulled through his teeth came out as a barely there gasp, but it was enough to send a shock through the other boy as he froze in place. Keeping his back towards the young prince, he slowly lowered his wooden blade until the tip rest carefully against the grass at his foot.

“I’m sorry!” Shiro said quickly, moving forward even faster until his own worn boot found the plush grass of the courtyard. The other boy’s head slowly turned so he could look over his shoulder, exposing a soft profile and bright red marks that painted the crest of his cheeks.

There was only one family in all of Altea that bore marks of that color. A sudden vision of his father’s best friend and righthand man, Daiki, flit across his vision before it faded, leaving the sight of what could only be his son in its wake.

“Don’t stop,” he continued after the boy said nothing. “I didn’t mean to bother you. I just—”

Pausing, Shiro dropped his gaze down to the ground.

“I’m just not used to seeing other kids train is all,” he said finally, voice low as he focused on a single blade of grass that swayed against the suede of his boot. Silence settled over the courtyard as he waited for a reply, not even quite sure he’d get one. While most adults humored him and spoke with him as if he was an adult, most children didn’t based solely on the fact they didn’t understand the weight of his title.

If he was new to the kingdom, which Shiro suspected he was, he didn’t owe him any sort of response.

Something curdled in his stomach as he realized just how much he wanted one though.

“Really?” His voice sounded younger than Shiro had expected as he heard the sound of his boots shuffling against the ground. Peeking through his tuft of white bangs, he watched as the newcomer turned to face him. His face was shaped like a diamond, long and pointed but softened by his age, and his eyes were a steely purple that seemed cut straight from the same gems his mother liked to wear.

“No one else likes to train?” He asked, brows pulling together in almost comedic concern as he questioned Shiro. Looking up fully, he shook his head as he took another step closer, unable to look away from the bright red markings that contrasted brightly with his tanned skin and dark hair.

“No, but they’re all a lot younger I think,” he said as he shrugged. The boy looked down at the hilt of his carved sword, turning his palm up toward himself as he inspected the fingers that grasped it.

“That’s weird,” he said slowly as he lowered it. “I’ve always liked to train. It’s fun. And I’ve gotta be ready!”

Excitement turned his eyes bright as he spoke, taking his own step toward Shiro until just a few feet separated them.

“What do you have to be ready for?” Shiro asked, though he already knew. The Kogane family had protected the Shirogane family since the beginning of their reign several generations ago. They were known to be strong, and kind, and had always served as lifelong friends and allies as well as bodyguards for the royalty. When he learned about his lineage, he always learned about theirs since their family tree was rooted right along his.

They had been just as important in shaping the kingdom as it was currently, and the Shirogane line wanted to make sure it was never forgotten.

Though, Shiro couldn’t imagine why he’d never known about the youngest Kogane.

The other boy paused slightly, taking his turn to drop his gaze down as he shuffled his feet, suddenly sheepish.

“My dad said I’m not allowed to tell strangers,” he said quietly, his shoulders sagging slightly as his previous excitement was dulled by the weight of past words he must have been told. Looking up slightly in apology, Shiro nodded his head slowly in understanding.

“I’m Takashi Shirogane,” he said easily with a shrug. Realization eased across the other boy’s features as he recognized the name. Eyes widening, he looked over the prince as his mouth open over silent words before finally stopping on a smile.

Shiro watched as his grip tightened on the hilt and his other fisted itself at his side.

“I’m Keith Kogane!” He said proudly before he raised his empty fist, crossing it in front of himself and pressing it into his chest just above his heart in salute.

“And I’m going to protect you one day!”

***

Youthful ignorance left Shiro unaware of the severity of the war that had waged around the kingdom and at their borders. His studies had taught him of it and of the Galran aggressors who fought for a militaristic rule.

But, it had always felt like such a far off thing. Something that could never bleed over into Shiro’s life in the palace.

Everything was going great for him. Since their formal introductions with their fathers, Keith and Shiro had been inseparable. Having finally found a friend in each other, they spent most of their time training and exploring together, both often finding themselves in trouble together after a long day together that left the castle staff in search of them. Yet even then, Shiro had never been so happy.

It was then that he learned one of his most important lessons. That happiness could never last.

Shortly before his thirteenth birthday, Shiro’s parents left to join the battle that had stretched much too close to their home.

Quintants later, a bloodied messenger raced through the palace gates.

Both his parents were dead.

The frozen reality of the news numbed Shiro as he ran. Ran from the words that had turned his world upside. Ran from his grandfather’s stare that was as hard and hollow as his insides had felt.

Ran from everything in hopes that if he could get far away enough, it wouldn’t be true.

For all his curiosity, death had never been something he could understand. With all the searching and all the reading he had done, Shiro could never grasp how it was possible for a life to just end. As if it could ever make sense that one minute someone could be alive, and the next there would be nothing left but the endless marks they’d left on others.

Shiro didn’t stop running until he reached the old stables. Half of it had burnt after a lightning strike some time ago, leaving a husk standing out towards the forest that surrounded the palace. They were abandoned ruins that most avoided, but that Shiro and Keith had found to be the perfect hideout. No one ever thought to look for the young prince or his future guard amongst burnt wood and drifting ash.

His chest cracked and burned as he tried to breathe around the tears that had blinded him as he pushed himself beneath the fallen wood that partially blocked the entrance. Fumbling across the bits of debris and all that he and Keith had brought into the hideout, he finally found the blankets they had smuggled from the palace, collapsing onto them as he folded in on himself.

In the span of mere minutes, his entire world had shattered around him, rebuilding itself into something darker and sharper around him as he wondered if he’d ever breathe normally again.

This wasn’t right.

None of it was right.

He wasn’t ready for a life without his mother’s kind smile and his father’s firm, but compassionate ruling.  For all his lessons and all his dreams and aspirations, Shiro wasn’t ready for the responsibility that he would now bear.

Wrapping his arms around his shins, he pulled his knees further into his chest as the tears continued to fall, dripping over the bridge of his nose and falling onto the blanket.

He wasn’t sure how long he was there before he heard the soft sounds of someone outside the stable, their steps unsure as they slowly pushed themselves beneath the blocked entrance and made their way toward him.

“Shiro?” Keith’s voice was small, a barely there wisp that would have been carried away on the breeze if Shiro wasn’t always so aware of it. A quiet sob was his only answer as he continued further into the room, shuffling the blanket slightly as he sat at its edge. Through the wetness of his tears, Shiro could make out his friend’s blurry shape as he looked over him.

“Everyone is looking for you,” he said finally after taking in the prince’s form and noting that, aside from the tears that left trails on his skin, he was okay. Pushing himself up to sitting, Shiro kept his eyes forward as he nodded.

“I needed to get away.” Voice hoarse with thick tears, he still didn’t look at Keith, almost too scared to see the look of sympathy that would make his jewel eyes soft. That wasn’t what he wanted from his friend. He needed something else, though even he wasn’t quite sure what that was.

In his peripherals, he saw the slow movement of Keith’s nod.

“Did you get far enough?” He asked slowly, weighing each word against the possible answer. Another tear cascaded down his cheek, tracking wet warmth down his cheek before it dripped from his chin and landed on the back of his fist.

Then another.

And then another.

“I don’t think I ever could,” he finally answered, voice cracking with the confession as everything around him began to twist with watery darkness once more. His lungs seized and burned as he tried his hardest to breathe through each sob that shook his shoulders and threatened to break him open. It hurt.

A forceful tug pulled him off his axis as he found himself tipping sideways, the side of his face finding the hollow of Keith’s neck as his arms wrapped around his shoulders. Squeezing almost too tightly, it felt as if he was trying his best to keep him held together with the sheer force of his hug.

“I’m sorry,” he said, voice breezing across Shiro’s crown as he began to cry harder. In turn, Keith hugged him tighter.  “I know it doesn’t help. But I am.”

Turning into the embrace, Shiro’s fingers found the back of his friend’s shirt as he grasped onto it, almost as if he was afraid that if he didn’t, Keith would also disappear. Time continued to pass around them as Shiro continued to cry, not once letting go as the sun began to set and cast its shadows over the stable.

In all that time, no one found them, and Keith never pulled away. Even after Shiro adjusted himself so that he sat beside him once more, he made sure that there was always a point of contact between them. Nothing else was said between them as his tears dried and his sobs slowed into steady breathing. Even then, he didn’t pull away, instead choosing to quietly look up through the destroyed ceiling to the stars that watched over them.

Brushing his cheek along the tear soaked fabric of Keith’s shoulder, Shiro let his gaze wander up to take in his awed expression. They always tried to come out to the stables at night so they could stargaze, both having the same sense of curiosity for the sky that was stretched out above, but they’d never quite made it. One of them was always caught before they could make it out of the palace, which always led to the other being caught as well.

This was the very first time they’d finally made it, and Shiro couldn’t bring himself to pay attention to the constellations that he knew Keith would be tracing. Instead, he tracked his own lines along his friend’s face, committing it to memory.

It was there that Shiro realized Keith would always be his best friend.

It was there, that Shiro vowed to do whatever it took to make sure he never lost him too.

***

Shiro was annoyed. And what was worst, he wasn’t even allowed to be.

 _You’re to be the king, Takashi, you don’t get to take a break_ , his grandfather’s voice berated him over and over as he skulked through the halls. With his hands on his hips, he threw his head back as he let out a low huff of impatience.

As if he didn’t know that already. He was about to turn eighteen, and the throne would finally move from his grandfather’s power to his own, yet he still felt like a child lost amongst the castle alone. No matter how much tutoring he did, how much training he did, and how many meetings he went to, he wasn’t sure he’d ever be ready to be the leader that Altea would need. He could never be as equitable as his grandfather, who had managed to cultivate an alliance with the very people who had killed his son and daughter-in-law.

Shiro knew he could never be as faithful as his father, who would have been able to move forward from his own distrust of the Galran emperor.

He knew that he should, but he couldn’t. There was something beneath the surface of the sudden benevolence from Zarkon, and it made his skin crawl. His grandfather might think that they could change. That they were also tired of the fighting and the death, but that couldn’t have been all there was.

Wasn’t anyone going to question why Zarkon had been so quick to withdraw his forces and enter a life of peace just because the Alteans had asked kindly? This very thinking was why he found himself roaming the palace halls now as he punched his fist into the wall, savoring the sting of the marble against his knuckles.

 _That’s unbecoming of a king, Takashi_ , his grandfather’s voice reminded him as if he stood right at his shoulder.

“I know!” He growled at no one in particular as he pulled his fist away, looking down at the angry red skin as he grit his teeth into his anger. What was worst about it all was he wanted to be a good king. He just wasn’t sure how.

Shaking the residual pain from his hand, he continued on his path, thrusting his shoulder into the door at the end of the hall and exiting outside to the courtyard. A sense of deja vu coated his senses as he immediately caught sight of his target.

Much like that fateful day so long ago, Keith stood alone in the yard with his back towards him as he swung a weighted practice sword at the tree. The difference was now, he had lost all vestiges of his youth and grown into a strong fighter.

The sun beat against the naked skin of his back as his muscle rolled beneath the skin, making the light dance with the sweat that had beaded there. He moved quickly, with motions as smooth as water as he twisted and turned, landing every strike in the exact same notch of bark each time. Each arc of the blade of guided by a sure movement, and it constantly left Shiro in awe whenever he watched Keith train.

It felt as if fingers were tightening around his heart as he tried to time his breathing with the hard smacks of the dulled metal against wood.

The feeling had become quite a familiar one.

At some point in the years since they’d known each other, Shiro’s affections for his friend had grown larger than the simple bonds of friendship. One day, he’d noticed Keith’s eyes were the same shade of a night sky barely touched by a new day.

On that day, he’d noticed that his skin burned beneath his touch, and if he concentrated hard enough, he could feel the way his pulse beat strongly beneath it.

That day, he’d noticed that his smile cracked his ribs apart and left him exposed and raw.

It had been quite the discovery when he’d realized that what he’d felt for Keith was something a lot heavier than kinship. That constant, electric hum that danced across his sternum and made his fingers yearn to touch, was love.

A love that smothered all else beneath its weight until all he could see was the Altean guard. It was just as much an escape for him as their hideout had been. Whenever he had to get away, he knew he could find solace in the beat of his heart whenever he saw his friend.

It was selfish, but there were very few things that Shiro actually thought of as his, and with this he was allowed to be selfish.

Because, god, Keith was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.

“You just going to stand there or are you going to join me?” His voice was barely strained with the exertion of his training as he kept his eyes forward, swinging once more at the tree. The wind whistled as the unsharpened blade sliced through it with exaggerated force before it landed with a loud thunk, biting deeper into the wood where it stuck as he let go. Turning over his shoulder, he faced Shiro, offering him a smile made of sunlit marble.

It caused the prince pause as he went wide eyed, taking in the way Keith glowed with his own inner light before him, chest barely heaving with his breath as he waited for an answer.

“No, not today,” he sighed finally, shaking his head slowly. Regret turned his blood cool as he watched Keith’s smile falter and his brows pull together in confusion as he steadied his focus on him. Stepping closer, he let his gaze wander over him as if he could find the source of his friend’s trepidation, unaware of the way it twisted a knife point in his gut.

“Sit with me then,” he said easily as he returned his purple stare back to his face. “I could use a bit of company while I take a break.”

Nodding curtly, he followed Keith to the shade of the tree, sitting beneath it with his back to the aged bark as he pulled a water pouch from the bag he’d left behind it. Sliding down to sit next to him, Shiro was all too aware of the distance he’d managed to leave between them as he tore it open. He was also more than aware of the long ling of Keith’s throat as he threw his head back, drinking from the pouch and exposing it before him.

Momentarily, Shiro’s mind lingered over dark thoughts and the vein that stood out against Keith’s neck.

“So, do you want to talk about it?” Keith asked, dropping the now empty pouch on the ground beside him as he kept his eyes fixed up toward the sky, his breath steadying slightly as he caught it.

“Talk about what?” Shiro hit back, feigning ignorance as he tracked the path of a single bead of sweat as it rolled lazily down his guard’s temple.

“The reason you look like someone kicked your txakur.” Amethyst flashed in the sunlight as Keith peeked slyly at him, his mouth twitching upwards as if he knew just what that look was doing. Shiro’s skin burned where he was certain he could see straight through him as he quickly shifted his own stare away and toward the breezeway. Settling back on his hands, he swallowed down the confession that tickled the tip of his tongue.

“Do you think I can do this?” He asked instead, leaving  _this_  up to interpretation, though with the way Keith looked at him, he was certain he understood.

“Become king?” He said quietly up towards the heaven, leaving enough of a pause for Shiro to nod. “Of course I do. You’re the only one not giving yourself enough credit.”

His voice was easy as he spoke, as if he’d never been so certain of anything in his life. It set a low burning fire that ate across the expanse of Shiro’s chest as he ground his molars together.

“It’s more than that,” his earlier frustrations colored his words something dark as he balled his hands into fists. A sharp prick of pain bit at his palm as his nails cut into his skin and through his bitter thoughts and resentments. It was just that those that had come before him and done so much and were leaving it all in his hands.

“How am I ever supposed to live up to them?” He said beneath his breath, so lowly that for a moment he was certain Keith hadn’t heard him.

“You aren’t supposed to,” Keith growled, his own irritation charring his tone and leaving it almost ragged. “You’re just supposed to be you. That’s all you can do, Takashi.”

Somewhere buried beneath his statement, Shiro was sure he heard a confession as his attention snapped toward his friend. Fire glinted and sparked deep within the darkness of Keith’s eyes as he looked up at him fiercely, almost as if he’d been challenged. It set his expression into something hard as if he was daring Shiro to tell him something contrary. That look deflated him. Hunching his shoulders and falling back further against the tree, he let out a breath of air that carried with it his annoyance.

“But what if I’m not enough?”

In an instant, Keith softened and cooled, his look becoming warm as he shifted to knock his shoulder into his friend’s. Heat pooled across Shiro’s skin as his touch lingered slightly before he pulled away.

“You’ll always be enough,” he said, baring an open and honest smile that raised bright pink in the apples of his cheeks. “And if no one else thinks so, at least you’ll always have me.”

Lightning fizzled and cracked in the mere inches between them as something shifted between them. Shiro could feel it in the sudden stillness that fell over the courtyard as they held each others gazes and just breathed. It weighed down on his skin and wormed its way into his bones until he was certain they would snap beneath it. The feeling was suffocating, but more than that, it was exhilarating.

Time stood still as they looked over each other, neither moving until suddenly, they were. With a sharp gasp of breath, Shiro found himself pulled forward as he closed the distance between them. Sifting his fingers through the soft waves of Keith’s hair, he anchored himself as he opened into the kiss. Fire surrounded him as he let himself become consumed by everything that Keith was.

He was the ever expanding universe that Shiro had always wanted to explore and in that moment, it felt as if he had everything he could have wanted within the palms of his two hands.

That very same heat washed away his frustrations as he found himself lost in the feel of their shared breaths. Light exploded and popped at the edges of his vision as he felt the dull pressure of teeth biting into his lip. Keith caught his breathless moan just as Shiro tried to pull away, only to find himself fixed in place by the guard’s hand fisted in his shirt.

Breathing heavier than he had with his training, Keith softly rested his forehead against the prince’s, lips slightly parted as he dragged air into his lungs.

His next words were a simple breath on Shiro’s lips before he chased them with another kiss.

“You’ll always be enough to me.”

***

Lamplight flickered across Shiro’s skin as he scrubbed a hand over his eyes and across the raised scar that now marred the bridge of his nose. It no longer ached and pulled like it had in the months following the accident that had also taken his right arm, but it was still an ugly reminder that he’d never be at the helm of a fighter ship again. Not, that he supposed he should have been in the first place.

A dead king is a useless king after all.

It had happened shortly after his grandfather passed, leaving him without any family at all at just twenty. Some said that Shiro’s grief was what had led to the error that crashed his fighter during a training session, leaving him less of a king than he already had been. What they didn’t know was that it was nothing more than a momentary mistake.

Shiro was never quite sure what would have been worse for them to know.

Keith was the one that had pulled him from the wreckage with sure hands and a steady voice as he’d tethered him before he could be lost forever to the darkness.

He’d been the one to step up as the interim leader while Shiro recovered.

Then he’d been the one to push him forward to being the king that he was now. Maybe he wasn’t as steadfast as his grandfather or as loved as his father, but he was revered by his people. They looked up to him as if he was what they actually deserved in a leader.

And finally, Shiro thought maybe he could be.

It had been four deca-phoebes since, and he was still working as hard as ever to do right by his people, and most importantly, do right by the one person that truly mattered.

The only problem was that there were so many problems, and he was stretched about as thin as he could be without tearing completely.

In short, Shiro was tired.

Sighing loudly, he dropped his head back, staring up at their bedroom ceiling as he traced the golden constellations that littered the marble. It was a gift from Keith who had had it added after his accident.

 _So you can always see the sky_ , he had said with a smile Shiro had come to learn was only reserved for him.

“That’s a very world weary sigh, Takashi,” Keith’s voice was fire that quickly filled the room with its heat as he heard his careful steps close in behind him. “Don’t tell me our fearless leader is tired.”

Careful hands slipped over his shoulders, kneading small circles into the muscle as Shiro chuckled, not moving as Keith continued to work against the tight knots in his shoulders.

“I hate to break it to you, but I think I earned the right to be tired.” It was a halfhearted quip as he let his head fall forward toward his chest to give Keith more space to work. Breath tickled the back of his neck as he felt lips brush slowly over the ball of spine at its base.

“So why don’t you take a break?” Keith challenged, lips moving against his skin as he spoke. Shiro’s blood heated with the implication in his lover’s voice as he continued to massage him. Temptation made his own fingers twitch as he bit into the meat of his lip, trying his best to trap a moan with his teeth as Keith found a particularly stubborn knot.

“You know I can’t, Keith,” he managed to press through the crack of his lips.

“A king should always find time to rest,” he continued, pulling back and focusing on the task at hand. “We wouldn’t want you to be overworked.”

“Tell that to the Rublon,” Shiro snorted humorlessly. “I don’t think I could get away with pushing back this visit again, even if I tried.” There weren’t many kingdoms that Shiro disliked visiting, but that of the Rublon was one of them. Having been the closest ally to the Galra during the war, they didn’t escape his suspicions. They’d always been alongside them in the bloody history that surrounded the Galran empire and Shiro was certain that if there were any sinister plans, they would also be a part of them.

He’d be a liar if he said that that hadn’t played a role in how many times their meeting had been rescheduled. Luckily, he had had his workload to blame, but something told him he couldn’t get away with it for much longer.

“Maybe you should send someone else in your place,” Keith said thoughtfully as he artfully rolled his thumbs up and down his neck, sending a shudder all the way down his spine.

“If it was that easy, I would have done it by now,” Shiro managed around the moan he couldn’t be bothered to stifle.

“Maybe,” lips pressed more firmly against his neck just at his nape, “you should send me.”

For all the work Keith had put into removing the tension in his upper back, it returned in an instant as his guard spoke. It wasn’t something he’d ever considered, if only because he wasn’t sure he could send just anyone. If there was something going on, he would need to send someone he could trust, yet it had never occurred to him to send the one person he trusted most.

“Then, you can focus on other things,” Keith’s voice turned wicked as he saw an opening in Shiro’s hesitation.

“Yeah?” His laugh turned breathy as Keith’s attentions filled with motive. Each brush and press of his fingers left trailing lines of fire in their wake as he worked them over his back. “And what would those other things be?”

His hands disappeared as he sauntered around until he stood before Shiro, fixing him with a hungry gaze before carefully climbing into his lap. Placing a knee on either side of his thighs, he settled carefully in front of him with a hand gently pressed against his chest. In the low lighting, his skin looked sun-kissed, glowing with the same gold of daylight. Burning want pooled in Shiro’s gut as Keith fixed his incendiary stare on him, all the while licking a line across his bottom lip.

Reaching up slowly, he pressed a palm on either side of his neck, brushing both thumbs over the lamplit red of his marks and causing Keith’s eyes to flutter at the soft caress. Pulling him down toward him, he placed a slow, languid kiss to his lips, only opening up into it when he felt Keith surge forward to take all that Shiro was.

Not that he minded. He could have everything, for everything that he was was his.

The kiss started like a simple spark to kindling that quickly erupted into a roaring pyre. Lost to it, they both quickly found themselves panting into each other as Keith ground down into Shiro’s lap.

“And what am I supposed to do when I miss you?” Shiro whispered into the kiss, not bothering to move to far as he spoke. It’s the only real answer he had given to Keith’s proposition and it formed a winning smile across his kiss bruised lips. Pressing a small, chaste kiss to the corner of Shiro’s mouth, he pulled back as he carefully climbed back out of his lap. Cool air washed over him from the absence of his body as he watched the guard start to walk towards their bed.

Reaching out behind him, he crooked his finger in a come hither motion as he looked over his shoulder with a smirk and a well placed wink.

It was the only invitation Shiro needed as he pushed himself out of his chair, following after his love. He really did need to take a break after all. A very wise man had told him as much.

“Don’t worry, Takashi,” Keith laughed as Shiro caught up with him, pushing him down onto their bed and landing over him. Burying his face in the crook of his neck, Shiro began to press heated kisses to his throat, reveling in the way he felt Keith’s pulse quicken with each touch.

Nails scratched at the short hair of his undercut, pulling a wicked smile against his lips that he kept hidden against Keith’s throat.

It was always just meant for him anyway.

“I’ll be back in no time, and you won’t even have time to miss me.”

***

**After.**

The lights in the med bay were dimmed to a soft blue hush that brushed across Keith’s features, turning them even softer in his sleep. It had been a couple quintants since he’d helped him escape. In fact, kidnapped him was probably the more proper term, since Keith hadn’t had any say in the matter. By the time Shiro had blown the door off his cell, he had already drifted out of consciousness.

He knew that it only made sense that he would still be under. Even Altean medicine couldn’t work miracles, and now it was just up to time and Keith’s own will to live. Not that he’d worried about that. Shiro had seen the way he’d fought in the the arena.

He had seen the fight that coursed through his veins and pushed him through the wounds he’d sustained. Keith was a fighter. Always had been.

At least, the Keith he had known had been.

They looked so similar. With his hardened angles and lithe form, it was no wonder Shiro had thought he’d seen him risen from the dead. It was even in the very way the man had carried himself down in the red dirt that had covered the arena ground.

He traced the carved bridge of his nose, following the blue light that lit his profile and made it more ethereal.

More beautiful.

But this wasn’t Keith. At least, not his. A sharp pain rocketed through his chest as if a knife had been thrust between his ribs and forced a breath through his lips as he raised a careful hand. Softly, he let his trembling fingers brush across the unmarked expanse of the man’s cheekbone, reveling in the warm skin beneath them.

He had been stupid to let himself believe that death would be so kind as to give him back, but the man before him now was alive and he could hold onto that for now. Slowly, he brushed over his cheekbone again, imagining the exact shade of red that he’d loved so much spreading out over the skin there.

Lost in his thoughts, Shiro missed the way Keith’s breathing shifted from the steadiness of sleep to something quicker and aware. The silver of his eyes suddenly met all too familiar amethyst as his eyes opened, pushing Shiro back in his chair as he pulled his hand away as if he’d been burned.

“Shiro,” the gladiator breathed with the very same voice he heard over and over in his dreams, effectively throwing his thoughts into a tailspin as he reminded himself to breathe. Composing himself as quickly as he could, Shiro pushed himself taller in his seat as he carefully slipped into his royal mask, turning his voice authoritative as he spoke.

“Good. You’re awake.” He stopped as Keith gasped, his expression faltering before falling into confusion as he dragged heated lines over his frame. It filled his lung with smoke that choked him, trapping his words in his throat.

 _This isn’t Keith_ , Shiro reminded himself as he forced himself to keep his hands at his sides, ignoring the hurt that made his eyes darker.  _You aren’t him._

_You aren’t mine._

Pulling a breath through his teeth, he steadied himself as he met the man’s gaze, holding it as he continued.

“We have much we need to discuss.”

*


	7. VI.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey remember when I said this would be monthly? I REALLY mean it this time XD
> 
> Sorry for the wait y'all, I moved and underestimated just how much that and my RBB would take and... well.... sacrifices had to be made.

**VI.**

Soft golden light brushed the hollow of Keith’s cheeks and dampened the darkness of the bags beneath his eyes, making him look more human than he actually felt as he looked over himself in the mirror. Thick black fabric hung hung from his shoulders, the unfastened buttons leaving the front of his loaned jacked open to expose the defined ridges of hard fought and won scars from the arena.

The newest sat like a bright pink crescent, several inches wide and long that cut down towards his collar and disappeared beneath the shoulder of the jacket. With trembling fingers, Keith smoothed across its edges, reveling in the dull ache that radiated from the contact.

It was a reminder that he was alive, and that this was not a dream, no matter how much it had felt like one when he’d awakened to find himself pinned beneath familiar silver.

 _Shiro was alive_.

 _Shiro was here_.

Or, he had been.

 _We have much we need to discuss_.

The words played like a death march in his mind as he began to clumsily push together the buttons of the jacket. He had seemed so solemn when he’d spoken, his tone colored with an impersonal authority that hardened his edges as he’d pulled back from Keith, leaving between them a chasm that he’d wanted nothing more than to close.

Even now, his fingers yearned to to reach out and touch the man that had chased away the vague impression of a ghost with the solidity of his very being.

If only he could touch the newly formed marks that accented his eyes. Touch the tough, pink scar that twisted the skin along the bridge of his nose.

Touch the sharp line of his jaw that had been set with a resolution that Keith could only guess at.

All he wanted was to reach out to prove to his quickly beating heart that he wasn’t a phantom, conjured by his fevered dreams and the poison that had filled his bloodstream.

Keith tugged at the high collar, pulling at its red accents until it sat opened toward the dip of his collar bone in a vain attempt to stop the feeling of being choked by it.

Almost as soon as Shiro had spoken, a stranger had entered the room, stealing his attention with words about a delegation meeting that wouldn’t wait any longer and a hidden apology that had made him sigh. It had been a heavy thing that had shoved his shoulders down with the weight of an unseen world that Keith could only imagine.

What had he been through since he’d gone missing?

What had changed him, morphing him into a fighter the very same way the gladiator ring and done him?

What had happened?

Sighing loudly, Keith turned away from the mirror, feeling claustrophobic in the foreign clothes that clung to his frame, accenting the sharp lines of his warriors build. The room that stood behind him had taken him by surprise when Shiro’s advisor—  _Coran_ , he reminded himself— had pushed open the door with a sorrow touched smile as he’d nodded for him to enter.

It wasn’t the kind of room Keith had imagined for any guest, but that could have just been because he had grown accustomed to the Galran brand of hospitality.

Built for grandeur, it stretched long enough to fit at least three of his shacks within its darkened walls, their height looming even taller. Dark grey colored the walls, offset by a desk, a vanity and an impossibly large bed all carved by rich chestnut wood.

And above was a starlit ceiling, its bright constellations illuminating the room with a welcoming glow that turned it intimate.

No, it didn’t feel like a room meant for a guest. It felt like it was made for royalty. It felt, like it was made for someone else.

Letting his head fall back, Keith felt his hair tickle between his shoulder blades as its length fell under the jacket’s collar as he traced his eyes over the patterned stars above. Even though they were unfamiliar to him, they still eased his nerves like his own used to do.

If given the chance, Keith was sure he could lose himself to the shimmering lights, and for just a moment, he wondered if Shiro did the same.

A soft rap of knuckles against wood followed by a quiet cough snapped the silence of the room and pulled Keith’s focus back down from the imitation sky.

Standing in the doorway, Coran’s eyes widened as they look him over, taking in his frame with the outfit that had been laid out carefully for him. There’s a spark of something a lot like recognition in his eyes as they shine for just a moment with the warm starlight before his eyebrows pulled together in concern.

“How are you feeling?” He asked, his strange accent wrapping around the words in a way that only turned them softer.

“Like I was almost killed by an alien beast in a gladiator ring and saved by the grace of alien technology,” Keith quipped, half joking. It earned him a flat stare as Coran cocked his head to the side in silent question. It filled the room and made his fingers buzz with unease as he fidgeted with the sleeves of the jacket, tugging them down towards his fingers to no avail.

The fit was just too perfect.

“Fine,” he rectified as he flicked his gaze down toward the ground. “I feel fine.”

A small sound of approval hummed in Coran’s throat, urging Keith on as he looked back up to see the advisor nod.

“Is the meeting done?” Keith continued, trying for nonchalance, though by the way the man’s eyes flash and his mouth tugged up slightly, he can see that he failed.

“Ah, want to see Shiro, do you?” It felt like his gaze is cutting straight into Keith’s chest as he spoke, making him wonder if Coran could see the very way his heart twisted and stuttered at the mere mention of Shiro’s name. It’s almost as if the advisor knows something.

A sharp stab of clarity twisted in Keith’s gut.

Maybe, he did.

“That’s good, because it is about time for supper, and the king is under strict orders to not miss any of those,” Coran laughed like it was a joke they shared before he turned away from the room. Lifting hand, he gestured for him to follow as he walked away from the doorway.

“Follow me,” he said happily. “I’ll take you the scenic route!”

The invitation hangs between them as Keith watched Coran’s form disappear around the door and into the hall. Moments passed as he stared at the emptied doorway, waiting for a sign of the man’s return to see if he’d follow, only to realize that it was an open invite.

If Keith wasn’t ready, he had every opportunity to stay behind and wait for the answers to find him instead.

As if Keith had ever been one for waiting.

With a steadying breath, he pushed himself forward, his steps made into sound with the soft soles of his borrowed leather boots hitting the marbled ground as he exited the room. Letting the door fall shut behind him, he jogged towards Coran, only stopping at his side when the advisor turned to him with an approving smile.

“My grandfather built this castle,” he said as he looked away once more toward the heavy doors ahead of them. They stood tall and proud like defenders in the marbled hall, making Keith feel impossibly small by their looming presence as he dragged his gaze along the veins of black that accented the otherwise white of the hall.

“Just about 600 years ago. He was quite the Altean, if I do say so myself.” Pride gleamed in Coran’s eyes as he pushed the door open, holding it open with one hand for Keith.

“Altean?” He asked, confused by the foreign word as he stepped through the doors. On the other side is a courtyard that gleams with the mixed light of the moon above and the crystals that line the exterior walls that capture the illumination in their dark metal. The brightness of it all rivals that of the sun as Keith shielded his eyes from the light, momentarily blinded.

It causes him to miss the way Coran flinched at his question.

“Altea, that’s where we are,” Coran said matter-of-factly, as if the explanation shouldn’t be necessary. “ That’s what we are.” Keith’s vision returned in time for him to see the advisor gesture towards the marks that sit below his eyes.

“Alteans.”

Humming in acknowledgement, Keith nodded as he turned away to hide the look that furrowed his brow.

_If the marks made Coran Altean, what did they make Shiro?_

It’s quiet in the courtyard, and that silence wrapped itself around Keith as he lost himself to the emptiness.

All that’s there is an open stretch of grass and a single tree.

Standing proudly with its branches stretched protectively outward, it almost looked solemn in its pose. As if it was waiting for something.

As if it was waiting for  _someone_.

Tracing his eyes over the bark, Keith noted long lines of deep scars etched into its trunk. Then he sees something he’d missed.

Shrouded by the shadows of the tree and the darkness of the evening, is a black marble column. From where he stood, he could barely make out the fine lines of gleaming gold veins that disrupt the darkness of the smooth stone, and a shining plaque at its top.

Before it, sat a tied bouquet of strange, crimson flowers.

With a suddenness that tilted his world on its axis, Keith realized he didn’t need to get closer to know what the column is.

It’s a grave.

A grave for someone important.

“So what about you?” Coran asked, pulling Keith’s attention away from the marble that had captured it so fully. The man has pulled ahead of him as Keith realized that he’d become so enraptured by the gleam of onyx stone that he’d stopped walking altogether.

Shaking his head quickly, Keith swallowed the lump that had formed in his throat as he closed the distance that had grown between them. Their feet quietly shuffled over the path of the courtyard as they made their way toward another set of large doors.

“What about me?” He asked, ignoring how dumb he sounded, even to himself.

“You aren’t Altean.” It’s a statement, not a question, and it’s filled with a sadness that Keith didn’t understand as Coran pushed open the grand doors.

“No,” Keith hummed lowly, his eyebrows pulling together in question as he stopped at the doorway and looked at the advisor as if might be able to pull the reason for his interest from within his mind.

“I’m not. I’m human.”

If he were less observant, he would have missed the quick look Coran flicked to the ground. Would have missed the way his lips downturned just as quickly. Would have missed the sudden slump of his shoulders.

It happened swiftly, like the pass of a fast moving cloud across the sun.

Coran’s entire mood shifted into something dark in the same span of a breath before returning brightly with a flash of a smile.

If he wasn’t so observant, Keith also would have missed the way it didn’t reach his eyes.

“Well that explains why the medicines didn’t work as quickly on you.” He spoke with a flourish as he gestured Keith to go through the door. A pause stretched between them, fragile and thin as he appraised the man.

Returning the look, Coran’s eyes shine with something secret.

Something filled with so much sorrow it shatters the moment as Keith steps across the threshold.

It’s another hall, a lot like the first, only this one is lined with windows that overlook the rolling hills surrounding the castle.

The very sight of them takes his breath away.

Even by the moonlight, he can tell they’re the deepest emerald. They contrasted so starkly with the bloody red of the Galran planet that he’d become accustomed to.

Keith’s breath hitched as he realized that they even contrast with the desert that he still thought of as home.

Before him, separated by a pane of glass, they gleam like an ocean as the grass catches the moon’s light and the wind moves it like waves.

“It’s beautiful here,” he hears himself say around a quiet gasp. Keith didn’t mean to say it, but he realized its truth as Coran made a contented sound in his throat that’s punctuated by the sound of another set of doors opening.

“I’m glad you think so,” the man said, offering a smile as Keith pushed through the door without question to see the vast expanse of a dining hall.

Matching the grandeur of the castle’s exterior, it’s walls shined metallic, only several shades lighter. Several chandeliers of sparkling crystal floated overhead, orbiting slowly around the ceiling like finely carved suns and with all the brightness of the moon outside as if they were drawing directly from its light.

Stretched down the center of the room is a large, onyx table adorned by silvered chairs with the two on either end of it standing tall with elongated high backs.

At the back of his mind, Keith can’t help but conjure a memory of a long forgotten fairy tale book from his childhood and a painted picture of two thrones.

That same memory melted into another of a prince as Keith’s eyes found Shiro sitting at the furthest point from where he stood. It’s quiet in the dining hall as Shiro kept his eyes down, fixated on a set of papers he has clutched in his hands.

Even from where he stands, Keith can see the divot that had worked itself between his eyebrows as he frowned down at them. The look is one that he knows well, having seen it so many other times before, usually when Shiro was trying hard to work through a problem he already knew that answer to, but didn’t seem to like.

Keith’s heart shot up into his throat at the familiarity of the expression.

 _Shiro_.

“The dining hall,” Coran said simply, waving his hand out towards the room. A wave of unease crested over him as he began to tug at the sleeves of the borrowed jacket once more. He didn’t belong in this room. It was meant for people more important.

It was clearly meant for someone like Shiro.

Meant for someone like the grave in the courtyard.

Silver flashed in the light as Shiro looked up at the sound of Coran’s voice with a question already prepped on his lips that died when he realized that his advisor wasn’t alone.

“Keith,” he said by way of welcome as he pressed the papers down into the table top. The sound of the single syllable punched through his chest and stole his breath.

How long had it been since he’d heard his name wrapped in the caress of Shiro’s voice?

His memory had tried to hold onto it, replaying it in his most desperate of moments, but it hadn’t done it any justice.

“Shiro,” he returned, his voice barely above a hush as he followed behind Coran to the chair beside him. With a quick tug, he pulled it out for him with a look of reassurance.

“Dinner will be brought out shortly,” the advisor said, turning his attention to Shiro with a meaningful stare that’s lost on Keith before returning to an open, friendly smile. “Next time, I’ll have to show you the rest of the castle.”

“Thank you for showing me around,” he said with a nod, hoping that Coran could hear the appreciation hidden beneath his breathless voice as he pulled his eyes away from Shiro.

Returning the nod, Coran pulled away and disappeared behind the doors they’d entered through, leaving them alone in the weighted silence. Stretching and wrapping around them, the quiet pressed down on Keith’s shoulders as he let his gaze roam over Shiro’s unmoving form, his shoulders set rigid almost as if he had been turned to stone as he kept his eyes trained on the doors ahead of him.

It didn’t even look like he was breathing.

Carefully, he dragged his stare along all of Shiro’s lines, tracking the high hold of his neck, down the strong form of his shoulders and to the gleam of his artificial hand.

He was different, but he was  _alive_.

A soft tingle ran itself along the pads of his fingers again with the undiluted feeling of want as Keith ground his molars into each other, biting down on the desire to just reach out and touch.

Cotton and acid filled the spaces of his ribs and made it hard to breathe.

Keith hadn’t realized how much he had missed the feel of this brand of suffocation.

“How are you feeling?” Shiro’s voice was a knife through his thoughts as his sixpence eyes caught the light as they shifted to him. It sounded equal parts forced and sincere as he let his stare fall down to the opened neck of the jacket.

Lingering over the spot, the moment turns heated as warmth flushed Keith’s cheeks. The skin on his knuckles protested as it pulled taut over bone with the force of his fists.

With the way it felt like the fabric was constricting across his frame, he suddenly wanted nothing more than to take the damned thing off.

“I’ll live. I’ve had worse,” Keith managed through his teeth, offering a halved smile in an another attempt at a joke.

It fell limply between them as silent cascaded back into the space left by his words.

“The castle is beautiful,” he followed up, expression sheepish as Shiro looked away.

“Thank you,” Shiro breathed, the sentiment twisted with pain as he kept his eyes turned down to the table. It had been the wrong thing to say, and suddenly, Keith felt wrong.

Everything was all wrong.

None of this was how he had imagined finding Shiro would be.

It felt almost as if he wasn’t even Shiro at all.

The realization is sharp as it slid cleanly between his ribs and angled upwards towards his heart.

 _Would that just explain it all_ , he thought darkly as his pulse crashed and roared in his ears.

What if this isn’t even Shiro at all?

Swallowing around a burning gulp of air, he started to speak, words coming out with a shake only to be cut off.

“Shiro, what hap—”

“Can I show you something?” It’s not just a question, but a plea that coats itself over Keith’s skin and makes him shudder.

“Now?” He asked, looking toward the door that Coran had disappeared behind as if he hadn’t already decided the answer.

“Please.” The single word is broken beneath the weight of final resolution, and when Keith turned back to face him, he sees the way Shiro’s eyes burn with a hope that he knew all too well.

Slowly, he nodded in agreement as his tongue lay useless in his mouth.

It deflated Shiro, pushing his shoulders down as he breathed a sigh of relief.

“Okay,” he said, more to himself as he stood.

“Okay,” Shiro repeated as he offered Keith a small smile that sets a fire ablaze in his chest. “Follow me.”

*

The warm night air ruffled the waves of Keith’s hair, brushing them across the back of his neck and tickling his cheeks as he looked over the burnt ruins of what had once been a stable. Charred wood stood like a skeleton before him as he watched Shiro push beneath fallen wood with practiced ease, barely brushing along the edges of the tightened space.

“This is what you wanted to show me?” Keith asked, incredulous as he ran a palm over the angry, blackened wood, feeling the char as it rubbed sooty marks into his skin. From the looks of it, the stable had been like this for quite some time, the broken and cracked frame preserved by the mild Altean weather.

The breeze rustled around him once more in the only answer he received outside of the quiet sound of Shiro pushing further into the collapsed wood.

Pulling a steadying breath between his teeth, Keith followed suit, dipping beneath the fallen plank. Pain radiated through his elbow as it met the sharp corner of a plank, startling a hiss from deep within him as he continued to follow the barely there path through the ruins.

How Shiro had fit so easily, he could never know.

“It’s quiet here,” Shiro said as if it’s an answer as Keith emerged from beneath a fallen rafter. “I can think here.”

Moonlight touched the dark edges of the stable, turning them brilliant where it shone down through where the roof should have been. Keith’s breath caught in his throat as he looked around where Shiro had stopped. The walls here were mostly untouched by smoke and fire, still standing strong in some reminder that the stables had once been whole, and above stretched the never ending Altean sky.

Keith wasn’t even sure when he’d last seen stars so bright as he peered up at them, awe making them stand out even brighter against the deep blue sky.

That’s a lie.

The last time, he had thought they would be his grave.

“I knew someone like you once,” Shiro continued without provocation. With his back turned toward him, he kept his gaze locked on the furthest wall.

It was wrapped with thick, weaving vines decorated by the same strange, red flowers he had seen earlier.

Quiet hushes over Keith’s skin as he stares over Shiro’s shoulder and at the fauna.

He doesn’t know what to say.

He suspected there was nothing that he could.

“He was a guard here.” Shiro’s words shook as he paused, his fists tightening at his sides as he drew a breath.

His next were almost carried away by the breeze.

“He was my most loyal guard.”

Another pause rolled out between them, heavy and thick as Keith waited for him to continue. Keeping time by his own skittering heartbeat, he lost himself to the rhythm of his pulse crashing in his ears. Seconds turned to minutes that battered against him in the unrelenting pace of time before Shiro finally turned to face him, his eyes shining and wet with molten starlight.

“He was you.” They’re three words. Just, three syllables carried on a barely there breath, but they tear him apart like a buckshot. Keith’s lungs burn with the sudden ripping of their flesh as he tried to keep hold of the breath that had just been trapped within them.

_He was you._

“At least, he was this reality’s version of you.”

_He was you._

Keith’s throat burned with the effort of breathing as he tried to latch onto a point that would keep the room from spinning.

_He was you._

The brightness of the moon melded with the darkness of the burnt shadows, twisting and forming into nonsensical monsters around him as he pulled his gaze up to the single silvered point of Shiro’s eyes.

_He was you._

His next thought is just as violent, grasping his heart and squeezing.

_So who are you?_

“What?” Keith choked on it, unable to hold the single word back as he looked at Shiro in unrelenting disbelief that burned through them both. Hurt muted the shine of his eyes as he sucked in his own breath and threw his head back, looking up at the sky as he pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger.

It was another familiar gesture that seized Keith by the throat.

“Are you familiar with alternate realities?” The question didn’t make sense as it worked its way through the din of Keith’s thoughts, only to get lost within the tempest battering itself into his skull.

“I don’t—” Keith started, trying to catch a semblance of breath.

He isn’t following, and he isn’t even sure he wanted to.

Shiro was alive.

He’d finally gotten him back.

But he hadn’t, and hadn’t he just known that all along?

And yet, all he could see play across the back of his eyelids is the same dark newscast and two bold, red words.

Pilot error.

“There’s a scientist. Slav,” Shiro continued, wrapping his tone with dark, disbelieving humor as he looked away from Keith’s pained stare and back up once more at the sky. “He theorized that there was an infinite number of realities. An infinite number of lives lived across an infinite number of stars.”

 _Infinite possibilities_ , Keith thought as pieces began to fall into place, each bringing him closer to a full breath as he tried to swallow down the lump in his throat.

Before him, the phantom of a memory fell across Shiro, with his dark hair and his kind eyes, his skin unmarked by scars or strange markings as he smiled.

God, did Keith miss that smile.

“No one believed him. But Keith,” the illusion disappeared, carried on the warm breeze and the tenderness of his name. “What if? What if he wasn’t wrong?”

A glimmer of something sacred, of something soft, sat nestled behind the tempered steel of Shiro’s gaze as he turned back to look over him. It’s a heavy stare, filled with a spark as if he was finally seeing Keith for the first time.

The spark ignited, rolling with thunder as it gathered in the air, growing into a storm that clung to his skin like the very same desert tempests that he’d used to love.

Heat rolled along the track of his tears as they began to roll down his cheeks.

Shiro is dead.

“I knew you.” It’s an echo of what Shiro said, mired within a sob as Keith continued to hold his gaze. He watched as Shiro’s hand caught the light above as it moved, reaching out as if to wipe away the tears and only pausing when Keith flinched away from the touch.

“You died.”

It’s an acknowledgement.

An apology.

It’s everything that had gathered between his bones and carried with him up into the stars, into the gladiator ring, and what should have been his death.

Shiro is dead.

Biting down on another wracking sob, Keith turned away, fixing his blurred vision on the swimming pinpricks of light above as he lodged his brain between the spaces of the strange constellations. If he concentrated hard enough, he was certain he could connect their lines into the ones he knew.

Their seconds stretched like hours as he let the tears fall, filling the empty space around them with the sound of their labored breathing.

His Shiro was gone. Keith had lost him, and he’d mourned for him, but he’d still allowed himself hope. Hope hadn’t been enough.

It had never been enough.

His Shiro is  _gone_.

But this Shiro, he’s alive. He’s here.

The tracks of his tears cooled and dried on his cheeks as he took his first steady breath.

“I knew you,” Keith said again, voice cracking as he closed his eyes to the light. Each word tasted bitter as they left the tip of his tongue.

“You died.”

Shiro’s expression was guarded as he turned toward him, finally opening his eyes.

“What now?” He asked curiously, quietly. The night had grown still, slipping into a witching hour that had already taken everything it could. Warmth gathered at the crest of his cheeks as Shiro studied him before dipping his head.

His lips quirked upwards at their edges in a small, consoling smile.

“We’ll worry about now later,” Shiro said softly, as he moved closer, holding his gaze in silent question as he slowly lifted his hand. After a moment’s hesitation, he dropped it gently onto Keith’s shoulder, clutching it briefly as he rubbed his thumb reassuringly against it.

Lightning crashed down through the touch, burning through the fabric of the jacket and into his very core.

“It’s late. Let’s get you back to the castle.”

The brush of Shiro’s fingers drag the warmth of dying embers along his skin as he pulled away, walking toward the fallen wood that they’d pushed through earlier. Without another word, Keith watched as he disappeared beneath it, leaving him alone to the silence of the stars.

A breeze, soft and sweet, washed across his skin as he kept his eyes trained on the spot that Shiro had vanished behind until it blurred. Blinking away the moment, Keith shook his head before following.

Somethings never changed.

Infinite lives lived across infinite stars.

Infinite possibilities.

Yet even now, he followed Shiro, still just out of reach.

*


	8. Interlude: Zarkon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not gonna lie here you guys, I'm a wee bit disappointed in myself for this one. Mostly because it was going to be so much longer and worth a month long wait, but it just didn't feel right and I decided it would be better split so that this stood alone as an interlude. But god damn do I feel bad for it being so short.
> 
> ~~please forgive me, its been the longest struggle trying to make it work and i didnt like it until i split it~~

**Interlude: Zarkon**

 

Heat lines twisted and rolled up from the crimson dirt of the arena, turning the slaves below into wavering mirages as Zarkon watched his guards shape them into something caught between warrior and sacrifice. Kill or be killed was the only rule they were to abide by. Set in the name of sport, it's a macabre entertainment that shed the blood he and his people no longer could to appease a thirst they could no longer quench as they bided their time for a chance to upend this so called peace that the Alteans had forced upon them.

But their time was just about to come again, and he was going to lead his planet to the throne they deserved.

To the throne that he deserved.

Biting at the edge of his cold smile, Zarkon remembered the way Takashi Shirogane's eyes had looked at him before he'd stormed out of their meeting.

The Altean King had tried valiantly to argue for the Champion’s freedom, masking his vested interest with diplomacy.

“Consider it a show of good faith,” he had said, tucking the small twitch of his mouth behind his chalice of offered wine.

“And is my acceptance of your grandfather’s treaty not good faith enough?” Zarkon had asked as he’d watched the young king squirm beneath his question’s truth. The moment of his pause still clung to his skin in the most delicious manner, digging deep into his muscle as Shirogane had tried to cut into him with his stare.

For just a moment, he had seen his own reflection in the fleeting second of anger that had rolled across his otherwise composed face.

It was the kind of look of a man ready to kill.

“What is one gladiator to your empire?” The Altean had finally asked after setting his cup back down, his back remaining ramrod straight as he had stared at him. Defiance had turned his silvered stare into something harder, like honed steel as he’d awaited an answer.

“What is one gladiator to you?” Zarkon had replied, as he’d settled back into his seat and watched Shirogane closely.

Carefully.

“Would you not give up one slave for the sake of peace?” It hadn’t taken long for the Altean’s facade to crack as he hissed his words, his knuckles whitening as he tightened his grip on the stem of his chalice.

Zarkon’s answer had been simple as he’d felt the air begin to shift along with the unseen pieces of the game that Shirogane hadn’t even been aware that he was a part of.

“No,” he’d hissed. “He is mine.”

His words had been meant as a challenge, and from the word he'd received late that night about the Champion's escape, it seemed the king had accepted it.

He'd struck every member of the Shirogane line from this existence save for one, and only _he_ seemed to know it. The cutting edge of Shirogane's suspicions were what had kept him out of reach so long, and to Zarkon's own, saved his life. In the end, it had only been luck that his failure to strike down the king had ultimately brought upon one of his greatest blows as he’d brought down his precious guard instead.

 _Love_ , he heard it was, the sound of it whispered through the crowds at the guard’s funeral.

 _Love,_  the Altean people had sighed, as their king had openly wept at the pyre.

 _Love,_  Zarkon had thought sardonically as he made to plan his next move, biding his time until he could manage another carefully placed blow.

It was while he was waiting, that luck had struck him again in the form of a lost soul. When the slaver had brought the human to him, he’d pointed out the strength it must possess to survive the kind of crash it had. He’d pointed out its obvious youth, and how it must certainly have many deca-phoebs left in him.

The slaver had even gone as far to point out the darkened bruise he’d been given, its berth extending across his eye and over his cheek in a way that turned his lavender skin black.

All his words were lost on him as Zarkon had looked at the human and his unconscious form, his head hanging back between his shoulder blades as he was held up by his guards for inspection.

He had been the spitting image of the guard, only missing the red marks that would expose him as one of the Kogane family.

“I’ll take him,” he had said before instructing his guards to take him to a cell and prepare him for a life in the arena.

Zarkon’s plan had formed quickly after that. All that he needed to do, was wait for the kingdoms to fall into the ease of peace, dropping their guards and finding a sense of security that would spell their doom.

Then finally, he could show his hand.

Or rather, his Champion.

As it turned out, Altea’s king still maintained a soft spot for a strong will crafted of wildfire, and gemstone eyes.

A spot just wide enough to thrust a blade through.

Licking his tongue across a pointed tooth, Zarkon watched closely as an electric whip snapped through the air and flayed across the back of one of the gladiators. Its cry pierced through the arena ricocheting off off the marble and metal in a way that silenced the others as they turned to watch. Dark lines of burnt flesh criss crossed the slave’s back as the guard brought the whip down on its back again and again, the heat of it cauterizing each mark instantaneously.

It was one of his favorite weapons, if only because it prolonged the inevitable. Many couldn’t last beneath one hundred lashes of a normal whip. Without the mercy of blood loss, it was amazing how much longer they could maintain consciousness.

Zarkon had always been fascinated by how resilient the body could be.

“You called for me, sire?” A crackling voice asked, pulling his gaze away from the red dirt as the whip flew once more. Cutting yellow bore down on him as the witch, Haggar, looked up at him with her soulless eyes. Her blue hued skin hugged taut along the sharpened line of her bones, accented by slicing red lines that dragged at an angled down her face and over her cracked lips.

The dark cloth of her robe swathed her hunched figure, exposing nothing more than her face and hands.

Across the back of one of her hands, was the wet shine of blood.

In the depths of the arena, he knew her lab would be coated in the very same crimson, some poor fool most likely left open on one of her tables.

Though, from the scowl that had her lips downturned, it would seem she didn’t have much hope for her current experiment anyway.

“Where are we in the plans?” Zarkon asked, rolling his question in his deep timbre as he looked over her thoughtfully.

Once, she had been a thing of beauty, renowned for both her knowledge as well as her grace. But that had thousands of deca-phoebs ago, and there were very few who still lived to remember that time.

Fingers curling into the bannister before him, his nails aching with the pressure of his grip, Zarkon watched as her features twitched into a deeper frown as she stared straight through him. It’s a look of defiance, cutting and cold in a way that would have spelled death for just about anyone else.

That very look was why some had begun to whisper about the witch’s hold over him.

Of course, those whispers had also been their last.

“We would be further if we had the Champion,” she hissed, voice roiling with the dark shadows of an anger she’d been holding onto. Ever since the gladiator had escaped, Haggar’s fury had been unmatched, fueling a string of failed experiments that had left a trail of mutilated bodies in her wake.

She had always had plans for the Champion. Plans that would have turned him into a great weapon and secure a Galran victory that would have secured their place ruling over the entire galaxy.

If only she knew he already was that much.

“Yes, so you have said,” he replied lowly as he turned his stare back to the ground below.

The guards had lined up the gladiators and begun to separate them, pulling sickly from the strong and capable.

“Sire, we are making progress everyday, and we are close,” Haggar paused, turning to place her blood stained hands on the railing beside his. “But we need him. We need his blood. His strength.”

Nodding in silent acknowledgement, Zarkon watched as a guard tugged a small alien from the line up. Giving in to the harsh pull, it stumbled forward, favoring his left leg in a limp. With tan, hairless skin, and small stature, it looks a lot like the Champion but even from where he stood, he could see that it suffered from the worst sickness of all.

Weakness.

“We can’t let your experiments fail,” Zarkon growled lowly as the guard below looked up in search of an answer. Holding his stare, he dipped his chin in a shallow nod.

Face pulling into a sneer, the guard kicked at the back of the slave’s knees, knocking him down into the dirt. There’s a rush of a voice pleading as it lurches forward, placing its hands on the red ground as it begged.

For mercy, perhaps.

As if there was a place for that kind of benevolence in the arena.

The only form of mercy the alien would be shown, would be a swift death.

Ignoring the gladiator’s cries, the guard raised his blade, its metal catching the light of the high sun above before he brought it down swiftly and cleaved it through its throat.

Sunlight tangled in its tawny hair as its head hit the ground, shimmering in the same way as the metal accenting in the arena walls that would now be its final resting place.

“Sire?” Haggar spoke up, voice tinged with something that turned its darkness into a sickly shade of bright.

 _Hope_ , Zarkon would think.

Tearing his gaze away from the bronze hair below, he looked at her and the way she kept her eyes forward.

“Call together the counsel,” he commanded. “The King of Altea has broken our treaty, and we will take back what is mine.”

Nodding curtly, Zarkon didn’t miss the way her lips turned up slightly before she turned to take her leave.

As he looked back down at the arena, he watched as the guard pulled another gladiator forward beside the discarded body. Something caught on the knife’s edge of a smile and a sneer cracked his features as he watched another head roll along the dirt, leaving a trail of blood behind it that darkened the ground.

*


	9. VII.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: This started with me making fart sounds at my computer screen, and then became one of my favorite chapters so far.

**VII.**

A deep ache bloomed in Shiro’s bones, dragging him down like a powerful tide as he eased himself further down in his throne. It had been just over a week since his entire life had been turned upside down by the cruel tempest of fate and Keith’s determined stare.

Just over a week since his old wounds had been reopened and left to fester in a way that left Shiro wondering if they’d heal this time around.

They sat split wide, rubbed raw by the constant poke and prod of the phantom gaze he could feel following him, and the memory of Keith’s twisted features in the moonlight as he’d mourned. Loss had somehow made him even more beautiful, and it’d taken everything in him to remind himself that he wasn’t  _him_.

That he wasn’t his.

Shiro had managed to keep his composure then, offering Keith solace in the shape of his strength that had only upheld itself long enough for him to get back to his quarters. Then, and only then had he allowed himself to fall apart. Even with the knowledge that he couldn’t be him, a small voice had sat at the back of his mind, greedily hissing  _what if_  like a mantra that had left him with a small glimmer of hope.

The broken glass and shattered wood still on his bedroom floor, and the bags beneath his eyes, were the proof of how hope could be more dangerous than despair.

Sighing loudly, Shiro swiped a finger across his holoscreen, pulling up words that only blurred together in lines of nonsense.

If he was being honest with himself, he needed to sleep.

If he was still being honest with himself, he knew he couldn’t because every time he tried, he saw a lithe form colored in deep amethyst, bright crimson and the darkest onyx.

Ever the coward, Shiro had taken to avoiding Keith under the guise of being a king too busy to spare him time outside the occasional hallway encounter and shared meal. Yet he still somehow managed to always be there in some capacity, and he was certain he was going to go crazy.

Sometimes, Shiro caught himself wondering if he already was.

With his eyes still fixed on the screen, he searched its bright light for some kind of cosmic answer to the painful joke that had been made of his life by fate.

A sharp sound, pitched high with urgency, made Shiro jump as the holoscreen flashed with an incoming message that prompted him to accept or decline.

It was a reminder that even in his most self pitying times, his world still continued to spin and his kingdom continued to need a leader.

Shaking his head quickly as if to dispel the gloom that had fogged his mind, he stabbed at the white lettered ‘ACCEPT.’

“Shiro,” a voice came through the screen ahead of any image. It’s filled with a brusqueness settled between exigency and unease, and it catches Shiro’s attention as the screen finally flickers to life, leaving him staring down the barrel of a dark stare.

The man, Rolo, was a bounty hunter with his finger of the pulse of the still blackened under belly of the kingdoms. Once a fugitive of Altea, he had proven his use with his vast knowledge of dark dealings and his extended network that gave him ears in near every court. Many decaphoebs ago, he had been given freedom on probationary circumstance.

Now, considered a friend of Altea, he was tasked with continuing his work in the name of the king. There was hardly any information that was passed between kingdoms without Rolo’s knowledge, and therefore, without Shiro’s.

If the furrow of his thin brows, and the downturn of his mouth were anything to go by, it seemed that the current information he’d dug wasn’t anything either of them truly wanted to hear.

“Rolo,” Shiro clipped, nodding quickly in acknowledgement. “What do you have for me?”

Truth be told, he already knew what it was. He could see it in the resigned look that had etched itself deep into Rolo’s features, aging him as his stare flicked down in search of his words.

Shiro had broken the treaty the second he’d decided to rescue Keith from that place. It had only been a matter of time until Zarkon decided to do something about it. Basing his choice on his glimmering longing, he’d handed the Galran emperor every opportunity he’d needed to finally free himself of the shackles of their peace.

Still, he had hoped that they would have had a bit more time.

 _There it is again_ , Shiro thought to himself, each word tasting of char.  _Hope_.

Rolo’s eyes darkened further, a shadow falling across them as he let out a breath that had his shoulders folding in on himself.

“It’s nothing favorable,” he said with a finality as deep as a grave as he paused, waiting for Shiro to urge him on as if he couldn’t continue otherwise.

“What did you find?” He asked after the swollen moment expanded until its weight crushed him, shoving his breath back down his throat until he was certain he was going to choke on it.

“He’s calling a council, Shiro.”

Heart kicking up into his sternum as the confirmation, he kept his eyes trained on his friend as he continued to speak.

“I intercepted the message this morning. It isn’t—”

Rolo’s steadying breath hangs between them for the length of a blink.

“It isn’t good.”

 _It wouldn’t be_ , Shiro thought as his pulse raced angrily in his ears, pounding like a war drum. A council was only called before a declaration of something great. Before any kingdom could move against another, it would first need to prove its facts and its truths to its peers before making its bid for combat.

A bid for war.

“Tell me,” Shiro said anyway, words dry as they tore from his throat in a desert rasp.

“He’s saying you broke the treaty. That you stole his Champion from him.”

Light catches the deep pitch of Rolo’s eyes as he peered at Shiro, waiting for a denial that wouldn’t come.

Zarkon would call a council, and each and every piece of evidence he would provide against the Altean king would be truthful.

He’d only done this to himself.

“You didn’t,” Rolo said, voice crackling with disbelief as he sat further back from the screen, appraising Shiro as if he were a stranger.

Maybe he was.

He hadn’t felt quite like himself for quite some time now. Ever since the flames of a funeral pyre had turned what was left of himself to ash.

“It was Keith.” It’s all Shiro can say. Broken, and small, it’s the only explanation that he had.

He knew it wasn’t smart, but it’s all he had, and for him, it was enough.

“Shiro,” Rolo started, turning his name into something soft and mired in sorrow. “Keith died.”

Two words.

They’re just two words that he’d spoken aloud to himself an indeterminable amount of times, yet they still made their mark like a rusted blade between ribs. The drag of them tore his flesh, leaving it hanging from his bone in jagged strips as he felt his mouth twist in unwarranted anger.

But you already know, the small voice hummed.

“I know!” Shiro echoed, his voice coming out sharper than he’d intended. It sounded as raw as his nerves felt, as he immediately cut his gaze away, missing the Rolo’s laser-like stare.

“I know,” he repeated, softer this time, as he rubbed his metal hand across his eyes. For just a moment, he finds a blissful darkness.

“But it’s him, Rolo. He’s Keith.”

Turning his attention back to the screen before the black of his vision can be painted with Keith’s smile, he catches Rolo’s look of confusion as he cocked his head. To him, it must sound like the delusion of a broken heart.

Maybe, it is.

“How?” Rolo’s question was low, almost directed to himself rather than the king before him. He shook his head all the same, brushing the question and the all too long explanation aside. It was better he didn’t know anyway.

Shiro had already condemned enough people to their death.

“What else, Rolo?” He volleyed back, not missing the way the bounty hunter winced at the question. A troubled storm clouded his eyes as his frown deepened.

“Many of the kingdoms are answering the call,” he finally answered after several moments.

It had only stood to reason that they would have, but if it had been as Shiro had expected, Rolo wouldn’t have looked as if he’d already been to a funeral.

“How many?” Shiro asked quietly, shifting up higher in his throne as he peered down at the holoscreen.

“All the Galran allies,” Rolo stated, which was a given. While the Galran had been the loudest about their dislike of the treaty, they hadn’t been the only ones to abhor the new rules they had deigned themselves to in the name of intergalactic peace.

“And about half the neutral kingdoms.”

 _Ah_ , Shiro thought as the rusted knife twisted.  _There it was_. Several of the kingdoms had elected for neutrality at the time of the treaty, citing that they would only choose a side should either give them a reason to.

And Shiro had given them a reason to.

“They say to truly remain neutral they have to check the validity of these claims, but Shiro,” Rolo’s eyes flicked down again, “it isn’t looking good.”

Breathing came difficultly as he nodded, because he knew. He had to have known. Everything he had done in life had come with a price, and this was no different.

Shiro had known, and he’d done it anyway.

 _Hope_ , the small voice hissed.

“Thank you for the information,” he said curtly in dismissal. There was nothing left to be said. Rolo had given his report, and there was nothing Shiro could say that would sate the dark curiosity rolling in his eyes. He couldn’t understand.

Shiro hardly understood himself.

Moving his hand, his fingers hovered over the button that would close their connection.

“Shiro,” Rolo called, causing him pause with the serious tone that dripped from his voice once more. Light turned his silver gaze bright as he flashed it back to meet Rolo’s gaze.

“Be careful. Zarkon doesn’t just want him back. He wants retribution.”  

Steeling himself, his next words are resigned.

“He wants you dead.”

Nodding again, Shiro offered him a small, rueful smile.

“I know,” is all he said before he closed the line, watching as the screen went black and left him staring at his own hollow reflection.

Quiet settled over the room, blossoming over his skin and making the ache in his bones double. It was a moment of suspended agony before he roared, shattering the silence and throwing the holoscreen at the wall.

The smash of its screen seemed to cling to the air as he pinched the bridge of his nose between his fingers, sliding himself down into his throne as he tried to time his breathing.

His options were laid before him, both blood stained and impossible.

Either he could hand himself and Keith over to Zarkon, and seal both of their fates, or he could take his people to war, and doom them all.

Breathing deeply and ignoring the burn of the air as it dragged back and forth within his lungs, he knew what he should do.

There was no way for him to justify the death of his people, and the destruction of the kingdom his family had worked so hard to build.

No way to justify the sacrifice of his planet for a perfect stranger.

Of the two options, he knew which was the right one. The one that he should make.

The quiet sound of the throne room’s door opening and closing was almost a scream as soft steps followed it.

“Sir?” Coran asked timidly as he approached. “Is everything okay? I thought I heard something break.”

 _No_ , he wanted to say.

“Everything’s fine,” he growled instead, ignoring how his tone juxtaposed the statement like light against dark. There’s a pause as he dragged one final breath through his nose, before pushing it back out between his teeth.

Dropping his hand to his side, Shiro sighed in decision as he fixed his stare on Coran.

“Can you bring Keith to the Great Hall? I need to speak with him,” he said lowly, leveling it behind an apologetic smile when his advisor looked him over with worry. There’s another question settled deep in his bright eyes, and Shiro watched the moment he decided not to ask it.

He wondered somberly if it was because he’d given up.

“Yes, sir,” Coran nodded, turning on his heal and disappearing back through the door, its click echoing through the room as he left Shiro along again to the silence.

***

Composure clung to Shiro’s skin like ornamental armor meant to be nothing more than a show. Hanging heavy against his shoulders, it weighed him down with its false air as he tried to stand taller.

If he didn’t, he feared it would bring him to his knees right where he stood in the hall waiting for Keith.

With his gaze set on the rolling hills that sat outside the stretch of window, and his mind a lifetime away, Shiro ignored the curious looks of wandering passersby. While the people of his kingdom had become quite accustomed to Shiro’s own roving, some still whispered about the far gone look that muted his silver eyes since the accident had turned him into something hard.

He was sure they were doing that now as he tried to memorize the exact shade of the grass as it shifted with the gentle breeze outside.

Caught somewhere between shimmering emerald and darkened jade, Shiro missed the quiet steps behind him, and the hushed sound of careful voices, until the sharp sound of Coran clearing his throat alerted him to the new presence at his back.

“Shiro,” his advisor spoke, his reflection appearing in the glass before him as he looked over Shiro with pinched brows. Even with the distortion of the shining surface, he could see the flash of worry settled in his eyes.

Worst still, he could see it etched across Keith’s face beside him.

Clearing his own throat, Shiro steeled himself as he turned towards them, nodding first to Coran before shifting his attention to Keith.

“Keith,” he said in low greeting. Involuntarily, his gaze dragged across his long lines, prompting a stray thought that stung deep in his chest.

Keith looked good.

Wearing the high collared jacked of a trusted guard, and with his hair falling in waves around his face in a way that Shiro had only been used to seeing during late nights in darkened rooms, Keith stood there before him as if he belonged.

As if he wasn’t the spitting image of a ghost that haunted the very same stretch of hall.

Swallowing down the sharp burn of ozone and want, Shiro clenched his fist against the phantom brush of velvet hair.

“Shiro,” Keith replied, offering him a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes as Coran gave him a soft pat on the shoulder before taking his leave. A buzz of static fills the space of the silence between them, coating Shiro’s skin with the almost painful thrum of white noise.

That same static seemed to plague them, twisting and tangling around the pair whenever they were alone. It had already been a jolting, burning thing when a dining table and small talk stood between them, but now it felt like he would be smothered.

With a small snap, Shiro felt a crack form in his armor.

“What did you want to see me about?” Keith asked after the moment had stretched too long and become something uncomfortable. The question stirs a brightness in his eyes as he looked up at him, turning the deep purple of a midnight sky into the sun-kissed violet of an early morning.

Shiro’s small laugh was meant to be one of reassurance, but it sounded too forced.

“Nothing in particular, just thought we could spend some time together while I have some free time,” he said, shrugging tightly as he tried to ignore the way Keith scrutinized him. His stare stays on him. Searching.

Burning.

And then, he laughed.

It was a genuine thing that buried itself deep in his chest and twisted in the cruelest, most blessed ways.

“Liar,” Keith replied, almost fondly, as he stepped closer and pointed a finger toward his face. “You have one fatal tell.”

A lightning strike jolted Shiro’s heart with the way his eyes danced with all too familiar mischief.

“That dimple, right there.”

Keith’s touch was warm as he poked his cheek right at the indent he knew had worked itself in deep. Continuing, Shiro heard the phantom echo overlay the words he’d already heard before.

“It always shows up when you’re telling a lie.”

Another crack split just over his heart as Keith dropped his hand, his smile turning sad.

“So what’s up, Shirogane. It must be important if you aren’t avoiding me anymore.”

Shiro felt the flush as it brushed across his cheeks, turning his skin a bright scarlet as he turned away in hopes of hiding his sheepish look.

He hated that Keith thought he was avoiding him.

He hated it more that he couldn’t deny it.

“Follow me,” Shiro said instead as he started to head down the hall.

It’s a dirty trick. If he was anything like the Keith he had known, he would follow him anywhere.

There’s a silence for the space of a breath before the echo of Keith’s footsteps mingled with his, first at their own rhythm before falling in cadence with each of his strides. His long legs caught up easily as he came up at his side, his attention kept ahead on the large oak doors at the opposite end of the hall.

Heat rolled off him in thick, waves, holding the same intensity of a burning desert. It’s a warmth that he’d missed, and for the few steps they had left, he allowed himself to selfishly bask in them.

Tall, smooth oak stretched upward before them as they came upon the doors. Looming like silent guards, Shiro placed his palms against their shined surface and pushed against their weight to reveal the marbled expanse before them.

The soft hush of a gasp brushed his senses as Keith stepped forward, looking over the onyx veined stone and the stretch of painted portraits that line its walls.

Gold framed and daunting, each one of the scenes hanging before them held a significant moment in the rise of the Shirogane family.

“I wanted to show you my family,” Shiro said lowly as he closed the door carefully behind Keith, silently collecting the look of awe that had widened his eyes as he painted the hall in amethyst.

Folding his hands behind his back, Shiro trailed a couple steps behind Keith as he walked toward the first of the paintings. Set as an elongated landscape, it depicted a barren landscape that wasn’t all too different from Daibazaal with its unending stretch of red desert and angry suns. Shadows of twisted and bent Alteans scattered the desolate land, their stances all turned upward toward the man standing at the forefront of the painting where he stood over the heaped body of the large, scaled lion.

Stopping before it, Keith looked up at the blood painted canvas, tilting his head as he looked over the scene, unaware— or just ignoring— the way Shiro stepped behind him.

From where he stood, he could almost feel the movement of Keith’s breathes.

“He was a wanderer,” Shiro said, looking over the painting he’d had memorized since childhood.

Looking over his shoulder, Keith looked up at him in silent question.

“The first Shirogane,” he answered, tracing the different brush strokes that came together to create the scene. A small hum of acknowledgement rumbled from deep in Keith’s throat as he turned his attention back to the art. “He’d won Altea from the Great Lion that had enslaved its people.”

Pausing, he stepped back as if it would help him see his ancestor in a better light.

“He gave up his freedom to help build a home.”

A sorrow that wasn’t wholly his own filled his voice as Keith nodded, the back of his hair brushing the back of the collar that rode high on his neck. He wondered briefly if Keith understood the pain of sacrifice.

The pain of losing freedom for something greater.

Without another word, Keith turned away from the painting, continuing his slow pace along the gallery that laid out Shiro’s history like some shrine of glory.

The second he stopped before was several paintings down. Standing tall, it showcased another proud Shirogane, his markings glowing the same bright teal that marked Shiro’s high cheekbones as his blade met that of a Galran’s. Both stood, muscles straining and teeth bared with equal fire turning their eyes bright with hatred as they were immortalized in the midst of a battle that Shiro knew ended with the Galran general’s head freed from his shoulders.

“The first battle of the Alteans and Galra,” Shiro hummed, not bothering to stop to look closer at the painting. It was the start of hundreds of deca phoebs of war, all started because of a love that shouldn’t have been, and a power hungry ruler who had always been looking for a cause.

They did say that history liked to repeat itself, he thought as Keith made a small sound before turning on his heel.

Towards the end of the wall, Keith’s next pause came before another large frame that Shiro knew would hold a face that he would be all too familiar with. That painting, depicted his grandfather, stooped over a table beside Zarkon as they both marked the current treaty that had been so hard fought for.

As nothing more than a child still morning the death of his parents, Shiro hadn’t been there when the treaty had been finalized, but he’d never believed that they’d captured Zarkon’s expression just right.

There was something too peaceful about it.

Something too other that he had never seen on the Galran emperor’s face.

“Our treaty,” he whispered, not missing the way Keith’s shoulders straightened as he glared up at the painting.

 _What did he see_ , Shiro wondered as he watched Keith turn to the back wall of the hall where just one photo hung.  _A moment of peace, or deceit?_

“And this?” Keith’s voice was small as he looked up at the newest of the portraits. Even with his back to him, Shiro knew where his gaze would be turned. The portrait, was the last of his family.

Before his parents died, and before any war had touched Shiro’s life.

It was the last evidence that they had been happy.

Painted just before his thirteenth birthday, Shiro’s younger self is bright, almost shiny and new, and he didn’t even recognize himself. Without the metallic arm, the scar, and the loss wrought in the lines that accented his eyes, he was an entirely different person.

The Shiro that stood proud before them next to his mother, and in front of his father and grandfather, had had everything and was too young to realize that that meant he’d also had everything to lose.

The movement of Keith’d hand captures his attention as he reaches out toward the painting, lightly dragging his fingers across the painted silver of his eyes.

“Shiro,” he whispered wetly. It’s such a quiet sound, that Shiro isn’t sure who he’s speaking to.

“Why did you really bring me here?” Keith asked suddenly as he turned to toward him, his face fierce even with the slick tracks that stained his cheeks. There’s a fire in his eyes that burn straight through him. That captivates him, and in that moment, Shiro felt the armor split.

Keith could see through him.

He always had been able to.

Sighing, Shiro took a step back in an attempt to escape the heavy weight of Keith’s proximity.

“When I saved you, I broke the peace treaty between my people and the Galra,” he started, sliding his gaze over the top of Keith’s head and towards his father’s kind smile.

Once upon a time, Shiro had tried to be just like him.

He hoped he wasn’t too disappointed in him, wherever he was.

“Zarkon is calling a council of the kingdoms to propose my punishment.”

There’s a hushed sound as Keith stepped closer. The blaze in his stare erupted, making his eyes dance with something almost malevolent and Shiro can’t bear to look, if only because he knew that it would turn him to ash in a way that he’d missed.

“What will he propose?” Keith’s voice is brimming with harsh smoke and half question. He knew what Zarkon would propose. He always had been smart.

“War,” Shiro supplied, not bothering to even give the other option that had been sat before him. It had never truly been an option for him at all.

Thousands of deca phoebs of Shirogane lives, and he was willing to end it all for a stranger that wore a familiar face.

A tight hand fell like a vice on his bicep and jerked him until his attention fell down on Keith, and the storm that was crackling underneath his skin. The purple of his eyes almost glowed with its intensity as he looked up at him with a face set in resolution.

Shiro had known that look well, too.

“Give me up instead,” he growled, his stare ready to raze kingdoms. “There’s no reason for you to sacrifice your people for me.”

Beneath that stare, Shiro felt the break of his composure as the jolt of it rippled across his chest.

“I can’t do that,” he snapped, voice filled with a challenging finality as he pulled his arm free of Keith’s hold. Tension sparked in the space between the, as his look turned defiant and he crossed his arms across his chest.

“You don’t even know me,” Keith accused, each word a punch that left Shiro breathless.

It’s a truth that he can’t deny, but it’s also a lie in its own right. Shiro knew everything about him.

He knew that when lost in thought, a divot would work itself deep between his brows.

He knew that when he smiled, it was like a slice of starlight.

He knew the exact husk of smoke that filled his voice as it wrapped around his name in the dark.

Shiro might not know Keith’s circumstance, or his history, but he knew him.

Just as the same could be said for Keith.

“Altea will protect you,” Shiro said finally, the same diplomatic decisiveness he reserved for meetings coloring his tone with steel. It’s a final statement that sent several different thoughts playing across Keith’s face until he settled into one that left him looking soft and young.

“Why would you risk your kingdom for me?” He asked slowly, turning his eyes away before softly repeating his earlier statement.  “You don’t even know me.”

Shiro felt his hand move of its own accord, the moment suspended itself before him, happening slowly and then all at once as his palm pressed against the sharp cut of Keith’s jaw, and his thumb brushed a line across the crest of his cheek. It burned hot against his touch in a way that should blacken and blister his skin, but he couldn’t pull away as he continued to draw the same line.

Back and forth.

Back and forth.

Stare mired in disbelief, Keith looked up at him with his mouth twisting around a thought, but he didn’t pull away.

Deep down, Shiro knew he should, but he’d already ignored what should be done that day. In the grand scheme of it all, this was just an insignificant sin.

“I can’t let them hurt you,” Shiro said, soft as a confession that startled a small sound from Keith’s lips as if he meant to speak. Continuing, he stopped him before he could.

“I suspect the Shiro you knew would say the same.”

Hesitation made Keith go rigid as something a lot like pain flashed across his eyes. It’s fleeting, but all too bright, and all too wet before a weak smile curled his mouth as he pulled away.

“You’re right,” he agreed lowly. “He would have.”

With a small nod, Shiro flicked his gaze away and back up to the frozen stare of his family. He felt it now, bearing down on him where he stood before them.

He felt it always.

 _I hope you understand_ , he thought shamefully, averting his stare as he turned away from the portrait.

“Now that that has been discussed, we have much to plan,” Shiro said, silently praying that Keith didn’t hear the way his voice broke slightly as heat pricked the edges of his vision.

“Yeah,” Keith grunted in reply, following behind him once more.

This time, he stayed at his back.

*


End file.
